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FROM   THE  LIBRARY  OF 
REV.   LOUIS    FITZGERALD    BENSON,   D.  D. 

BEQUEATHED   BY   HIM   TO 

THE   LIBRARY  OF 

PRINCETON  THEOLOGICAL  SEMINARY 


Division     ISTCJB 
Section        /VVZ<D 


POEMS 


VOL.  II. 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 

in  2012  with  funding  from 

Princeton  Theological  Seminary  Library 


http://archive.org/details/poemsOOIowel 


J  NOV  20  1933  * 

POEMS  ^iomMm^ 


BY 


JAMES    RUSSELL    LOWELL. 


IN   TWO   VOLUMES. 
VOL.   II. 


BOSTON: 
TICKNOR,   REED,    AND    FIELDS 


M  DCCC  XLIX. 


Entered  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1849,  by 

James  Russell  Lowell, 

n  the  Clerk's  Office  of  the  District  Court  of  the  District  of  Massachusetts. 


CAMBRIDGE: 

STEREOTYPED  and  printed  by 

METCALF     AND     COMPANY, 

PRINTERS   TO   THE   UNIVERSITY. 


CONTENTS. 


PAGE 

Columbus      ........  3 

An  Incident  of  the  Fire  at  Hamburg   .          .  17 

The  Sower .22 

Hunger  and  Cold    ......  25 

The  Landlord 30 

To  a  Pine-tree 33 

Si  descendero  in  Infernum,  ades       ...  36 

To  the  Past 39 

To  the  Future 43 

Hebe 48 

The  Search         .......  50 

The  Present  Crisis 53 

Summer  Storm      .......  63 

The  Growth  of  the  Legend           ...  68 

A  Contrast 73 

Extreme  Unction      ......  75 

The  Oak 80 


VI  CONTENTS. 

Ambrose 83 

Above  and  Below 87 

The  Captive .  90 

The  Birch-Tree 96 

An  Interview  with  Miles  Standish     ....  98 
On  the  Capture  of  certain  Fugitive  Slaves  near 

Washington 106 

On  the  Death  of  Charles  T.  Torrey     .         .         .  Ill 

Remembered  Music           .......  114 

Song:   to  M.  L 116 

To  the  Dandelion 118 

The  Ghost-Seer    .                 121 

The  Morning-Glory 131 

Studies  for  Two  Heads 135 

On  a  Portrait  of  Dante  bt  Giotto      ....  142 

On  the  Death  of  a  Friend's  Child          .        .        .  145 

Eurtdice 150 

She  came  and  went 155 

To  W.  L.  Garrison 157 

The  Changeling .        .  160 

An  Indian-Summer  Reverie 164 

The  Pioneer 180 

Longing 183 

The  Vision  of  Sir  Launfal 185 

Ode  to  France 211 


CONTENTS.  Vll 

Kossuth 221 

To  Lamartine .  224 

A  Parable 228 

Ode  written    for  the    Celebration    of    the    Intro- 
duction    OF     THE     COCHITUATE     WATER     INTO     THE 

City  of  Boston 231 

Lines    suggested    by    the    Graves   of    two    English 

Soldieus  on  Concord  Battle-Grocnd          .         .  234 

To  238 

Freedom 241 

BlBLIOLATRES 245 

Beaver  Brook 248 

To  John  G.  Palfrey 251 


%*  The  poem  called   "The  Morning-Glory,"   on  page  131,  it  is  proper  to 
state,  is  by  another  hand. 


POEMS 


POEMS 


COLUMBUS. 


The  cordage  creaks  and  rattles  in  the  wind, 

With  freaks  of  sudden  hush ;  the  reeling  sea 

Now  thumps  like  solid  rock  beneath  the  stern, 

Now  leaps  with  clumsy  wrath,  strikes  short,  and,  falling 

Crumbled  to  whispery  foam,  slips  rustling  down 

The  broad  backs  of  the  waves,  which  jostle  and  crowd 

To  fling  themselves  upon  that  unknown  shore, 

Their  used  familiar  since  the  dawn  of  time, 

Whither  this  foredoomed  life  —  an  eminent  surge 

Chance-heaped  a  breath's  space  o'er  the  weltering  press, 


4  COLUMBUS. 

With  deeper  grip  clutching  the  tide's  green  mane 
And  later-weaned  from  the  mid-ocean's  breast, 
Yet  not  less  frail  than  the  individual  shape 
By  vanishing  water  worn  —  is  guided  on 
To  sway  on  triumph's  hushed,  aspiring  poise 
One  glittering  moment,  then  to  break  fulfilled. 

How  lonely  is  the  sea's  perpetual  swing, 
The  melancholy  wash  of  endless  waves, 
The  sigh  of  some  grim  monster  undescried, 
Fear-painted  on  the  canvas  of  the  dark, 
Shifting  on  his  uneasy  pillow  of  brine  ! 
Yet  night  brings  more  companions  than  the  day 
To  this  drear  waste  ;  new  constellations  burn, 
And  fairer  stars,  with  whose  calm  height  my  soul 
Finds  nearer  sympathy  than  with  my  herd 
Of  earthen  souls,  whose  vision's  scanty  ring 
Makes  me  its  prisoner  to  beat  my  wings 
Against  the  cold  bars  of  their  unbelief, 
Knowing  in  vain  my  own  free  heaven  beyond. 
O  God  !  this  world,  so  crammed  with  eager  life 
That  comes  and  goes  and  wanders  back  to  silence 


COLUMBUS.  O 

Like  the  idle  wind,  which  yet  man's  shaping  mind 

Can  make  his  drudge  to  swell  the  longing  sails 

Of  highest  endeavour,  —  this  mad,  unthrift  world, 

Which,  every  hour,  throws  life  enough  away 

To  make  her  deserts  kind  and  hospitable, 

Lets  her  great  destinies  be  waved  aside 

By  smooth,  lip-reverent,  formal  infidels, 

Who  weigh  the  God  they  not  believe  with  gold, 

And  find  no  spot  in  Judas,  save  that  he, 

Driving  a  duller  bargain  than  he  ought, 

Saddled  his  guild  with  too  cheap  precedent. 

O  Faith !   if  thou  art  strong,  thine  opposite 

Is  mighty  also,  and  the  dull  fool's  sneer 

Hath  ofttimes  shot  chill  palsy  through  the  arm 

Just  lifted  to  achieve  its  crowning  deed, 

And  made  the  firm-based  heart,  that  would  have  quailed 

The  rack  or  fagot,  shudder  like  a  leaf 

Wrinkled  with  frost  and  loose  upon  its  stem. 

The  wicked  and  the  weak,  by  some  dark  law, 

Have  a  strange  power  to  shut  and  rivet  down 

Their  own  horizon  round  us,  to  unwing 

Our  heaven-aspiring  visions,  and  to  blur 


6  COLUMBUS. 

With  surly  clouds  the  Future's  gleaming  peaks, 
Far  seen  across  the  brine  of  thankless  years. 
If  the  chosen  soul  could  never  be  alone 
In  deep  mid-silence,  open-doored  to  God, 
No  greatness  ever  had  been  dreamed  or  done  ; 
Among  dull  hearts  a  prophet  never  grew  ; 
The  nurse  of  full-grown  souls  is  solitude. 

The  old  world  is  effete  ;  there  man  with  man 
Jostles,  and,  in  the  brawl  for  means  to  live, 
Life  is  trod  under  foot,  —  Life,  the  one  block 
Of  marble  that 's  vouchsafed  wherefrom  to  carve 
Our  great  thoughts,  white  and  godlike,  to  shine  down 
The  future,  Life,  the  irredeemable  block, 
Which  one  o'er-hasty  chisel-dint  oft  mars, 
Scanting  our  room  to  cut  the  features  out 
Of  our  full  hope,  so  forcing  us  to  crown 
With  a  mean  head  the  perfect  limbs,  or  leave 
The  god's  face  glowing  o'er  a  satyr's  trunk, 
Failure's  brief  epitaph. 

Yes,  Europe's  world 
Reels  on  to  judgment ;  there  the  common  need, 


COLUMBUS. 

Losing  God's  sacred  use,  to  be  a  bond 

'Twixt  Me  and  Thee,  sets  each  one  scowlingly 

O'er  his  own  selfish  hoard  at  bay  ;  no  state, 

Knit  strongly  with  eternal  fibres  up 

Of  all  men's  separate  and  united  weals, 

Self-poised  and  sole  as  stars,  yet  one  as  light, 

Holds  up  a  shape  of  large  Humanity 

To  which  by  natural  instinct  every  man 

Pays  loyalty  exulting,  by  which  all 

Mould  their  own  lives,  and  feel  their  pulses  filled 

With  the  red  fiery  blood  of  the  general  life, 

Making  them  mighty  in  peace,  as  now  in  war 

They  are,  even  in  the  flush  of  victory,  weak, 

Conquering  that  manhood  which  should  them  subdue. 

And  what  gift  bring  I  to  this  untried  world  ? 

Shall  the  same  tragedy  be  played  anew, 

And  the  same  lurid  curtain  drop  at  last 

On  one  dread  desolation,  one  fierce  crash 

Of  that  recoil  which  on  its  makers  God 

Lets  Ignorance  and  Sin  and  Hunger  make, 

Early  or  late  ?     Or  shall  that  commonwealth 

Whose  potent  unity  and  concentric  force 


8  COLUMBUS. 

Can  draw  these  scattered  joints  and  parts  of  men 

Into  a  whole  ideal  man  once  more, 

Which  sucks  not  from  its  limbs  the  life  away, 

But  sends  it  flood-tide  and  creates  itself 

Over  again  in  eveiy  citizen, 

Be  there  built  up  ?     For  me,  I  have  no  choice  ; 

I  might  turn  back  to  other  destinies, 

For  one  sincere  key  opes  all  Fortune's  doors ; 

But  whoso  answers  not  God's  earliest  call 

Forfeits  or  dulls  that  faculty  supreme 

Of  lying  open  to  his  genius 

Which  makes  the  wise  heart  certain  of  its  ends. 

Here  am  I ;  for  what  end  God  knows,  not  I ; 
Westward  still  points  the  inexorable  soul ; 
Here  am  I,  with  no  friend  but  the  sad  sea, 
The  beating  heart  of  this  great  enterprise, 
Which,  without  me,  would  stiffen  in  swift  death  ; 
This  have  I  mused  on,  since  mine  eye  could  first 
Among  the  stars  distinguish  and  with  joy 
Rest  on  that  God-fed  Pharos  of  the  north, 
On  some  blue  promontory  of  heaven  lighted 


COLUMBUS. 

That  juts  far  out  into  the  upper  sea ; 

To  this  one  hope  my  heart  hath  clung  for  years, 

As  would  a  foundling  to  the  talisman 

Hung  round  his  neck  by  hands  he  knew  not  whose, 

A  poor,  vile  thing  and  dross  to  all  beside, 

Yet  he  therein  can  feel  a  virtue  left 

By  the  sad  pressure  of  a  mother's  hand, 

And  unto  him  it  still  is  tremulous 

With  palpitating  haste  and  wet  with  tears, 

The  key  to  him  of  hope  and  humanness, 

The  coarse  shell  of  life's  pearl,  Expectancy. 

This  hope  hath  been  to  me  for  love  and  fame, 

Hath  made  me  wholly  lonely  on  the  earth, 

Building  me  up  as  in  a  thick-ribbed  tower, 

Wherewith  enwalled  my  watching  spirit  burned, 

Conquering  its  little  island  from  the  Dark, 

Sole  as  a  scholar's  lamp,  and  heard  men's  steps, 

In  the  far  hurry  of  the  outward  world, 

Pass  dimly  forth  and  back,  sounds  heard  in  dream. 

As  Ganymede  by  the  eagle  was  snatched  up 

From  the  gross  sod  to  be  Jove's  cupbearer, 

So  was  I  lifted  by  my  great  design : 


10  COLUMBUS. 

And  who  hath  trod  Olympus,  from  his  eye 
Fades  not  that  broader  outlook  of  the  gods  ; 
His  life's  low  valleys  overbrow  earth's  clouds, 
And  that  Olympian  spectre  of  the  past 
Looms  towering  up  in  sovereign  memory, 
Beckoning  his  soul  from  meaner  heights  of  doom. 
Had  but  the  shadow  of  the  Thunderer's  bird, 
Flashing  athwart  my  spirit,  made  of  me 
A  swift-betraying  vision's  Ganymede, 
Yet  to  have  greatly  dreamed  precludes  low  ends  ; 
Great  days  have  ever  such  a  morning-red, 
On  such  a  base  great  futures  are  built  up, 
And  aspiration,  though  not  put  in  act, 
Comes  back  to  ask  its  plighted  troth  again, 
Still  watches  round  its  grave  the  unlaid  ghost 
Of  a  dead  virtue,  and  makes  other  hopes, 
Save  that  implacable  one,  seem  thin  and  bleak 
As  shadows  of  bare  trees  upon  the  snow, 
Bound  freezing  there  by  the  unpitying  moon. 

While  other  youths  perplexed  their  mandolins, 
Praying  that  Thetis  would  her  fingers  twine 


COLUMBUS.  1 1 

In  the  loose  glories  of  her  lover's  hair, 
And  wile  another  kiss  to  keep  back  day, 
I,  stretched  beneath  the  many-centuried  shade 
Of  some  writhed  oak,  the  wood's  Laocoon, 
Did  of  my  hope  a  dryad  mistress  make, 
Whom  I  would  woo  to  meet  me  privily, 
Or  underneath  the  stars,  or  when  the  moon 
Flecked  all  the  forest  floor  with  scattered  pearls. 

0  days  whose  memory  tames  to  fawning  down 
The  surly  fell  of  Ocean's  bristled  neck  ! 

1  know  not  when  this  hope  enthralled  me  first, 
But  from  my  boyhood  up  I  loved  to  hear 
The  tall  pine-forests  of  the  Apennine 
Murmur  their  hoary  legends  of  the  sea, 
Which  hearing,  I  in  vision  clear  beheld 

The  sudden  dark  of  tropic  night  shut  down 

O'er  the  huge  whisper  of  great  wateiy  wastes, 

The  while  a  pair  of  herons  trailingly 

Flapped  inland,  where  some  league-wide  river  hurled 

The  yellow  spoil  of  unconjectured  realms 

Far  through  a  gulf's  green  silence,  never  scarred 


12 


COLUMBUS. 


By  any  but  the  Northwind's  hurrying  keels. 

And  not  the  pines  alone  ;  all  sights  and  sounds 

To  my  world-seeking  heart  paid  fealty, 

And  catered  for  it  as  the  Cretan  bees 

Brought  honey  to  the  baby  Jupiter, 

Who  in  his  soft  hand  crushed  a  violet, 

Godlike  foremusing  the  rough  thunder's  gripe  ; 

Then  did  I  entertain  the  poet's  song, 

My  great  Idea's  guest,  and,  passing  o'er 

That  iron  bridge  the  Tuscan  built  to  hell, 

I  heard  Ulysses  tell  of  mountain-chains 

Whose  adamantine  links,  his  manacles, 

The  western  main  shook  growling,  and  still  gnawed  ; 

I  brooded  on  the  wise  Athenian's  tale 

Of  happy  Atlantis,  and  heard  Bjorne's  keel 

Crunch  the  gray  pebbles  of  the  Vinland  shore  : 

For  I  believed  the  poets ;  it  is  they 

Who  utter  wisdom  from  the  central  deep, 

And,  listening  to  the  inner  flow  of  things, 

Speak  to  the  age  out  of  eternity. 

Ah  me  !  old  hermits  sought  for  solitude 


COLUMBUS.  13 

In  caves  and  desert  places  of  the  earth, 

Where  their  own  heart-beat  was  the  only  stir 

Of  living  thing  that  comforted  the  year ; 

But  the  bald  pillar-top  of  Simeon, 

In  midnight's  blankest  waste,  were  populous, 

Matched  with  the  isolation  drear  and  deep 

Of  him  who  pines  among  the  swarm  of  men, 

At  once  a  new  thought's  king  and  prisoner, 

Feeling  the  truer  life  within  his  life, 

The  fountain  of  his  spirit's  prophecy, 

Sinking  away  and  wasting,  drop  by  dropy 

In  the  ungrateful  sands  of  skeptic  ears. 

He  in  the  palace-aisles  of  untrod  woods 

Doth  walk  a  king ;  for  him  the  pent-up  cell 

Widens  beyond  the  circles  of  the  stars, 

And  all  the  sceptred  spirits  of  the  past 

Come  thronging  in  to  greet  him  as  their  peer, 

While,  like  an  heir  new-crowned,  his  heart  o'erleaps 

The  blazing  steps  of  his  ancestral  throne  ; 

But  in  the  market-place's  glare  and  throng 

He  sits  apart,  an  exile,  and  his  brow 

Aches  with  the  mocking  memory  of  its  crown. 


14 


COLUMBUS. 


But  to  the  spirit  select  there  is  no  choice  ; 

He  cannot  say,  This  will  I  do,  or  that, 

For  the  cheap  means  putting  Heaven's  ends  in  pawn, 

And  bartering  his  bleak  rocks,  the  freehold  stern 

Of  destiny's  first-born,  for  smoother  fields 

That  yield  no  crop  of  self-denying  will ; 

A  hand  is  stretched  to  him  from  out  the  dark, 

Which  grasping  without  question,  he  is  led 

Where  there  is  work  that  he  must  do  for  God. 

The  trial  still  is  the  strength's  complement, 

And  the  uncertain,  dizzy  path  that  scales 

The  sheer  heights  of  supremest  purposes 

Is  steeper  to  the  angel  than  the  child. 

Chances  have  laws  as  fixed  as  planets  have, 

And  disappointment's  dry  and  bitter  root, 

Envy's  harsh  berries,  and  the  choking  pool 

Of  the  world's  scorn,  are  the  right  mother-milk 

To  the  tough  hearts  that  pioneer  their  kind, 

And  break  a  pathway  to  those  unknown  realms 

That  in  the  earth's  broad  shadow  lie  enthralled  ; 

Endurance  is  the  crowning  quality, 

And  patience  all  the  passion  of  great  hearts  ; 


COLUMBUS.  15 

These  are  their  stay,  and  when  the  leaden  world 
Sets  its  hard  face  against  their  fateful  thought, 
And  brute  strength,  like  a  scornful  conqueror, 
Clangs  his  huge  mace  down  in  the  other  scale, 
The  inspired  soul  but  flings  his  patience  in, 
And  slowly  that  outweighs  the  ponderous  globe,  — 
One  faith  against  a  whole  earth's  unbelief, 
One  soul  against  the  flesh  of  all  mankind. 

Thus  ever  seems  it  when  my  soul  can  hear 

The  voice  that  errs  not ;  then  my  triumph  gleams, 

O'er  the  blank  ocean  beckoning,  and  all  night 

My  heart  flies  on  before  me  as  I  sail ; 

Far  on  I  see  my  lifelong  enterprise, 

Which  rose  like  Ganges  'mid  the  freezing  snows 

Of  a  world's  sordidness,  sweep  broadening  down, 

And,  gathering  to  itself  a  thousand  streams, 

Grow  sacred  ere  it  mingle  with  the  sea  ; 

I  see  the  ungated  wall  of  chaos  old, 

With  blocks  Cyclopean  hewn  of  solid  night, 

Fade  like  a  wreath  of  unreturning  mist 

Before  the  irreversible  feet  of  light ;  — 


16  COLUMBUS. 

And  lo,  with  what  clear  omen  in  the  east 
On  day's  gray  threshold  stands  the  eager  dawn, 
Like  young  Leander  rosy  from  the  sea 
Glowing  at  Hero's  lattice  ! 

One  day  more 
These  muttering  shoalbrains  leave  the  helm  to  me  : 
God,  let  me  not  in  their  dull  ooze  be  stranded  ; 
Let  not  this  one  frail  bark,  to  hollow  which 
I  have  dug  out  the  pith  and  sinewy  heart 
Of  my  aspiring  life's  fair  trunk,  be  so 
Cast  up  to  warp  and  blacken  in  the  sun, 
Just  as  the  opposing  wind  'gins  whistle  off 
His  cheek-swollen  mates,  and  from  the  leaning  mast 
Fortune's  full  sail  strains  forward ! 

One  poor  day  !  — 
Remember  whose  and  not  how  short  it  is  ! 
It  is  God's  day,  it  is  Columbus's, 
A  lavish  day !     One  day,  with  life  and  heart, 
Is  more  than  time  enough  to  find  a  world. 

1844.  , 


17 


AN  INCIDENT  OF  THE  FIRE  AT  HAMBURG. 


The  tower  of  old  Saint  Nicholas  soared  upward  to  the 

skies, 
Like  some  huge  piece  of  Nature's  make,  the  growth 

of  centuries ; 
You  could  not   deem   its   crowding  spires  a  work   of 

human  art, 
They  seemed  to  struggle  lightward  from  a  sturdy  living 

heart. 

Not  Nature's  self  more  freely  speaks  in  crystal  or  in 

oak, 
Than,  through  the  pious  builder's  hand,  in  that  gray  pile 

she  spoke ; 

2 


18  AN    INCIDENT    OF    THE    FIRE    AT 


HAMBURG. 


And  as  from  acorn  springs  the  oak,  so,  freely  and 
alone, 

Sprang  from  his  heart  this  hymn  to  God,  sung  in  obedi- 
ent stone. 

It  seemed  a  wondrous  freak  of  chance,  so  perfect,  yet 

so  rough, 
A    whim    of    Nature    crystallized    slowly    in    granite 

tough ; 
The  thick  spires  yearned  towards  the  sky  in  quaint, 

harmonious  lines, 
And  in  broad  sunlight  basked  and  slept,  like  a  grove  of 

blasted  pines. 

Never  did  rock  or  stream  or  tree  lay  claim  with  better 

ngnt 
To   all   the   adorning   sympathies   of   shadow   and   of 

light; 
And,     in     that     forest     petrified,     as     forester     there 

dwells 
Stout  Herman,  the  old  sacristan,  sole  lord  of  all  its 

bells. 


AN    INCIDENT    OF    THE    FIRE    AT    HAMBURG.  19 

Surge  leaping  after  surge,  the  fire  roared  onward  red 

as  blood, 
Till  half  of  Hamburg  lay  engulfed  beneath  the  eddying 

flood ; 
For  miles  away,  the  fiery  spray  poured  down  its  deadly 

rain, 
And  back  and  forth  the  billows  sucked,  and  paused,  and 

burst  again. 

From  square  to  square  with  tiger  leaps  rushed  on  the 
lustful  fire, 

The  air  to  leeward  shuddered  with  the  gasps  of  its  de- 
sire ; 

And  church  and  palace,  which  even  now  stood  whelmed 
but  to  the  knee, 

Lift  their  black  roofs  like  breakers  lone  amid  the  whirl- 
ing sea. 

Up  in  his  tower  old  Herman  sat  and  watched  with  quiet 
look  ; 

His  soul  had  trusted  God  too  long  to  be  at  last  for- 
sook ; 


20  AN   INCIDENT    OF    THE    FIRE    AT    HAMBURG. 

He  could  not  fear,  for  surely  God  a  pathway  would  un- 
fold 

Through  this  red  sea  for  faithful  hearts,  as  once  he  did 
of  old. 

But  scarcely  can  he  cross  himself,  or  on  his  good  saint 
call, 

Before  the  sacrilegious  flood  o'erleaped  the  church-yard 
wall ; 

And,  ere  a  pater  half  was  said,  'mid  smoke  and  crack- 
ling glare, 

His  island  tower  scarce  juts  its  head  above  the  wide  de- 
spair. 

Upon  the  peril's  desperate  peak  his  heart  stood  up  sub- 
lime ; 

His  first  thought  was  for  God  above,  his  next  was  for 
his  chime ; 

"  Sing  now  and  make  your  voices  heard  in  hymns  of 
praise,"  cried  he, 

"  As  did  the  Israelites  of  old,  safe  walking  through  the 


AN    INCIDENT    OF    THE    FIRE    AT    HAMBURG.  21 

"  Through  this  red  sea  our  God  hath  made  the  pathway- 
safe  to  shore ; 

Our  promised  land  stands  full  in  sight ;  shout  now  as 
ne'er  before !  " 

And  as  the  tower  came  crushing  down,  the  bells,  in 
clear  accord, 

Pealed  forth  the  grand  old  German  hymn,  —  "  All  good 
souls,  praise  the  Lord  !  " 


22 


THE  SOWER. 


I  saw  a  Sower  walking  slow 
Across  the  earth,  from  east  to  west ; 
His  hair  was  white  as  mountain  snow, 
His  head  drooped  forward  on  his  breast. 

With  shrivelled  hands  he  flung  his  seed, 
Nor  ever  turned  to  Jook  behind  ; 
Of  sight  or  sound  he  took  no  heed  ; 
It  seemed  he  was  both  deaf  and  blind. 

His  dim  face  showed  no  soul  beneath, 
Yet  in  my  heart  I  felt  a  stir, 


THE    SOWER.  23 

As  if  I  looked  upon  the  sheath 
That  once  had  clasped  Excalibur. 

I  heard,  as  still  the  seed  he  cast, 
How,  crooning  to  himself,  he  sung, — 
"  I  sow  again  the  holy  Past, 
The  happy  days  when  I  was  young. 

"  Then  all  was  wheat  without  a  tare, 
Then  all  was  righteous,  fair,  and  true  ; 
And  I  am  he  whose  thoughtful  care 
Shall  plant  the  Old  World  in  the  New. 

"  The  fruitful  germs  I  scatter  free, 
With  busy  hand,  while  all  men  sleep  ; 
In  Europe  now,  from  sea  to  sea, 
The  nations  bless  me  as  they  reap." 

Then  I  looked  back  along  his  path, 
And  heard  the  clash  of  steel  on  steel, 
Where  man  faced  man,  in  deadly  wrath, 
While  clanged  the  tocsin's  hurrying  peal. 


24  THE    SOWER. 

The  sky  with  burning  towns  flared  red, 
Nearer  the  noise  of  fighting  rolled, 
And  brothers'  blood,  by  brothers  shed, 
Crept,  curdling,  over  pavements  cold. 

Then  marked  I  how  each  germ  of  truth 
Which  through  the  dotard's  fingers  ran 
Was  mated  with  a  dragon's  tooth, 
Whence  there  sprang  up  an  armed  man. 

I  shouted,  but  he  could  not  hear  ; 
Made  signs,  but  these  he  could  not  see  ; 
And  still,  without  a  doubt  or  fear, 
Broadcast  he  scattered  anarchy. 

Long  to  my  straining  ears  the  blast 
Brought  faintly  back  the  words  he  sung : 
44  I  sow  again  the  holy  Past, 
The  happy  days  when  I  was  young." 


25 


HUNGER  AND  COLD. 


Sisters  two,  all  praise  to  you, 
With  your  faces  pinched  and  blue ; 
To  the  poor  man  you  've  been  true 

From  of  old : 
You  can  speak  the  keenest  word, 
You  are  sure  of  being  heard, 
From  the  point  you  're  never  stirred, 

Hunger  and  Cold ! 

Let  sleek  statesmen  temporize  ; 
Palsied  are  their  shifts  and  lies 
When  they  meet  your  bloodshot  eyes, 
Grim  and  bold ; 


26  HUNGER    AND    COLD. 

Policy  you  set  at  naught, 
In  their  traps  you  '11  not  be  caught, 
You  're  too  honest  to  be  bought, 
Hunger  and  Cold ! 

Bolt  and  bar  the  palace-door ; 
While  the  mass  of  men  are  poor, 
Naked  truth  grows  more  and  more 

Uncontrolled ; 
You  had  never  yet,  I  guess, 
Any  praise  for  bashfulness, 
You  can  visit  sans  court-dress, 

Hunger  and  Cold ! 

While  the  music  fell  and  rose, 
And  the  dance  reeled  to  its  close, 
Where  her  round  of  costly  woes 

Fashion  strolled, 
I  beheld  with  shuddering  fear 
Wolves'  eyes  through  the  windows  peer ; 
Little  dream  they  you  are  near, 

Hunger  and  Cold  ! 


HUNGER    AND    COLD.  27 

When  the  toiler's  heart  you  clutch, 
Conscience  is  not  valued  much, 
He  recks  not  a  bloody  smutch 

On  his  gold : 
Every  thing  to  you  defers, 
You  are  potent  reasoners, 
At  your  whisper  Treason  stirs, 

Hunger  and  Cold ! 

Rude  comparisons  you  draw, 
Words  refuse  to  sate  your  maw, 
Your  gaunt  limbs  the  cobweb  law 

Cannot  hold : 
You  're  not  clogged  with  foolish  pride, 
But  can  seize  a  right  denied  ; 
Somehow  God  is  on  your  side, 

Hunger  and  Cold ! 

You  respect  no  hoary  wrong 
More  for  having  triumphed  long ; 
Its  past  victims,  haggard  throng, 
From  the  mould 


28  HUNGER   AND    COLD. 

You  unbury :  swords  and  spears 
Weaker  are  than  poor  men's  tears, 
Weaker  than  your  silent  years, 
Hunger  and  Cold  ! 

Let  them  guard  both  hall  and  bower  ; 
Through  the  window  you  will  glower, 
Patient  till  your  reckoning  hour 

Shall  be  tolled: 
Cheeks  are  pale,  but  hands  are  red, 
Guiltless  blood  may  chance  be  shed, 
But  ye  must  and  will  be  fed, 

Hunger  and  Cold ! 

God  has  plans  man  must  not  spoil, 
Some  were  made  to  starve  and  toil, 
Some  to  share  the  wine  and  oil, 

We  are  told : 
Devil's  theories  are  these, 
Stifling  hope  and  love  and  peace, 
Framed  your  hideous  lusts  to  please, 

Hunger  and  Cold ! 


HUNGER    AND    COLD.  29 

Scatter  ashes  on  thy  head, 
Tears  of  burning  sorrow  shed, 
Earth !  and  be  by  Pity  led 

To  Love's  fold  ; 
Ere  they  block  the  very  door 
With  lean  corpses  of  the  poor, 
And  will  hush  for  naught  but  gore,  — 


Hunger  and  Cold ! 


1844. 


30 


THE   LANDLORD. 


What  boot  your  houses  and  your  lands  ? 

In  spite  of  close-drawn  deed  and  fence, 
Like  water,  'twixt  your  cheated  hands, 
They  slip  into  the  graveyard's  sands 

And  mock  your  ownership's  pretence. 

How  shall  you  speak  to  urge  your  right, 

Choked  with  that  soil  for  which  you  lust  ? 
The  bit  of  clay,  for  whose  delight 
You  grasp,  is  mortgaged,  too ;  Death  might 
Foreclose  this  very  day  in  dust. 


THE  LANDLORD.  31 

Fence  as  you  please,  this  plain  poor  man, 

Whose  only  fields  are  in  his  wit, 
Who  shapes  the  world,  as  best  he  can, 
According  to  God's  higher  plan, 

Owns  you,  and  fences  as  is  fit. 

Though  yours  the  rents,  his  incomes  wax 

By  right  of  eminent  domain  ; 
From  factory  tall  to  woodman's  axe, 
All  things  on  earth  must  pay  their  tax, 

To  feed  his  hungry  heart  and  brain. 

« 
He  takes  you  from  your  easy-chair, 

And  what  he  plans,  that  you  must  do ; 
You  sleep  in  down,  eat  dainty  fare,  — 
He  mounts  his  crazy  garret-stair 

And  starves,  the  landlord  over  you. 

Feeding  the  clods  your  idlesse  drains, 

You  make  more  green  six  feet  of  soil ; 
His  fruitful  word,  like  suns  and  rains, 
Partakes  the  seasons'  bounteous  pains, 
And  toils  to  lighten  human  toil. 


32  THE    LANDLORD. 

Your  lands,  with  force  or  cunning  got, 
Shrink  to  the  measure  of  the  grave ; 
But  Death  himself  abridges  not 
The  tenures  of  almighty  thought, 
The  titles  of  the  wise  and  brave. 


33 


TO  A  PINE-TREE. 


Far  up  on  Katahdin  thou  towerest, 

Purple-blue  with  the  distance  and  vast ; 

Like  a  cloud  o'er  the  lowlands  thou  lowerest, 

That  hangs  poised  on  a  lull  in  the  blast, 

To  its  fall  leaning  awful. 

In  the  storm,  like  a  prophet  o'ermaddened, 

Thou  singest  and  tossest  thy  branches ; 
Thy  heart  with  the  terror  is  gladdened, 
Thou  forebodest  the  dread  avalanches, 

When  whole  mountains  swoop  valeward. 
3 


34 


TO    A    PINE-TREE. 


In  the  calm  thou  o'erstretchest  the  valleys 
With  thine  arms,  as  if  blessings  imploring, 

Like  an  old  king  led  forth  from  his  palace, 
When  his  people  to  battle  are  pouring 
From  the  city  beneath  him. 

To  the  lumberer  asleep  'neath  thy  booming 
Thou  dost  sing  of  wild  billows  in  motion, 

Till  he  longs  to  be  swung  'mid  their  booming 
In  the  tents  of  the  Arabs  of  ocean, 

Whose  finned  isles  are  their  cattle. 

For  the  gale  snatches  thee  for  his  lyre, 
With  mad  hand  crashing  melody  frantic, 

While  he  pours  forth  his  mighty  desire 
To  leap  down  on  the  eager  Atlantic, 

Whose  arms  stretch  to  his  playmate. 

The  wild  storm  makes  his  lair  in  thy  branches, 
And  thence  preys  on  the  continent  under ; 

Like  a  lion,  crouched  close  on  his  haunches, 
There  awaiteth  his  leap  the  fierce  thunder, 
Growling  low  with  impatience. 


TO    A   PINE-TREE.  35 

Spite  of  winter,  thou  keep'st  thy  green  glory, 

Lusty  father  of  Titans  past  number ! 
The  snow-flakes  alone  make  thee  hoary, 

Nestling  close  to  thy  branches  in  slumber, 
And  thee  mantling  with  silence. 

Thou  alone  know'st  the  splendor  of  winter, 
'Mid  thy  snow-silvered,  hushed  precipices, 

Hearing  crags  of  green  ice  groan  and  splinter, 
And  then  plunge  down  the  muffled  abysses 
In  the  quiet  of  midnight. 

Thou  alone  know'st  the  glory  of  summer, 
Gazing  down  on  thy  broad  seas  of  forest, 

On  thy  subjects,  that  send  a  proud  murmur 
Up  to  thee,  to  their  sachem,  who  towerest 
From  thy  bleak  throne  to  heaven. 


36 


SI  DESCENDERO  IN  INFERNUM,  ADES. 


O,  wandering  dim  on  the  extremest  edge 
Of  God's  bright  providence,  whose  spirits  sigh 

Drearily  in  you,  like  the  winter  sedge 

That  shivers  o'er  the  dead  pool  stiff  and  dry, 
A  thin,  sad  voice,  when  the  bold  wind  roars  by 
From  the  clear  North  of  Duty,  — 

Still  by  cracked  arch  and  broken  shaft  I  trace 

That  here  was  once  a  shrine  and  holy  place 
Of  the  supernal  Beauty,  — 
A  child's  play-altar  reared  of  stones  and  moss, 
With  wilted  flowers  for  offering  laid  across, 

Mute  recognition  of  the  all-ruling  Grace. 


SI    DESCENDERO    IN    INFERNUM,    ADES.  37 

How  far  are  ye  from  the  innocent,  from  those 
Whose  hearts  are  as  a  little  lane  serene, 

Smooth-heaped  from  wall  to  wall  with  unbroke  snows, 
Or  in  the  summer  blithe  with  lamb-cropped  green, 
Save  the  one  track,  where  naught  more  rude  is  seen 
Than  the  plump  wain  at  even 

Bringing  home  four  months'  sunshine  bound  in  sheaves !  — 

How  far  are  ye  from  those  !  yet  who  believes 
That  ye  can  shut  out  heaven  ? 
Your  souls  partake  its  influence,  not  in  vain 
Nor  all  unconscious,  as  that  silent  lane 

Its  drift  of  noiseless  apple-blooms  receives. 

Looking  within  myself,  I  note  how  thin 

A  plank  of  station,  chance,  or  prosperous  fate 
Doth  fence  me  from  the  clutching  waves  of  sin ;  — 
In  my  own  heart  I  find  the  worst  man's  mate, 
And  see  not  dimly  the  smooth-hinged  gate 
That  opes  to  those  abysses 
Where  ye  grope  darkly,  —  ye  who  never  knew 
On  your  young  hearts  love's  consecrating  dew, 
Or  felt  a  mother's  kisses, 


38  SI    DESCENDERO    IN    INFERNUM,    ADES. 

Or  home's  restraining  tendrils  round  you  curled 
Ah,  side  by  side  with  heart's-ease  in  this  world 
The  fatal  nightshade  grows  and  bitter  rue ! 

One  band  ye  cannot  break,  —  the  force  that  clips 
And  grasps  your  circles  to  the  central  light ; 

Yours  is  the  prodigal  comet's  long  ellipse, 
Self-exiled  to  the  farthest  verge  of  night ; 
Yet  strives  with  you  no  less  that  inward  might 
No  sin  hath  e'er  imbruted ; 

The  god  in  you  the  creed-dimmed  eye  eludes  ; 

The  Law  brooks  not  to  have  its  solitudes 
By  bigot  feet  polluted  ;  — 
Yet  they  who  watch  your  God-compelled  return 
May  see  your  happy  perihelion  burn 

Where  the  calm  sun  his  unfledged  planets  broods. 


39 


TO  THE   PAST. 


Wondrous  and  awful  are  thy  silent  halls, 

0  kingdom  of  the  past ! 

There  lie  the  bygone  ages  in  their  palls, 

Guarded  by  shadows  vast,  — 

There  all  is  hushed  and  breathless, 

Save  when  some  image  of  old  error  falls 

Earth  worshipped  once  as  deathless. 

There  sits  drear  Egypt,  'mid  beleaguering  sands, 

Half  woman  and  half  beast, 
The  burnt-out  torch  within  her  mouldering  hands 

That  once  lit  all  the  East ; 


40  TO    THE    PAST. 

A  dotard  bleared  and  hoary, 
There  Asser  crouches  o'er  the  blackened  brands 
Of  Asia's  long- quenched  glory. 

Still  as  a  city  buried  'neath  the  sea 
Thy  courts  and  temples  stand  ; 
Idle  as  forms  on  wind-waved  tapestry 
Of  saints  and  heroes  grand, 
Thy  phantasms  grope  and  shiver, 
Or  watch  the  loose  shores  crumbling  silently 
Into  Time's  gnawing  river. 

Titanic  shapes  with  faces  blank  and  dun, 

Of  their  old  godhead  lorn, 
Gaze  on  the  embers  of  the  sunken  sun, 
Which  they  misdeem  for  morn ; 
And  yet  the  eternal  sorrow 
In  their  unmonarched  eyes  says  day  is  done 
Without  the  hope  of  morrow. 

O  realm  of  silence  and  of  swart  eclipse, 
The  shapes  that  haunt  thy  gloom 


TO    THE    PAST.  41 

Make  signs  to  us  and  move  their  withered  lips 
Across  the  gulf  of  doom  ; 

Yet  all  their  sound  and  motion 
Bring  no  more  freight  to  us  than  wraiths  of  ships 

On  the  mirage's  ocean. 

And  if  sometimes  a  moaning  v.  andereth 

From  out  thy  desolate  halls, 
If  some  grim  shadow  of  thy  living  death 
Across  our  sunshine  falls 
And  scares  the  world  to  error, 
The  eternal  life  sends  forth  melodious  breath 
To  chase  the  misty  terror. 

Thy  mighty  clamors,  wars,  and  world-noised  deeds 

Are  silent  now  in  dust, 
Gone  like  a  tremble  of  the  huddling  reeds 
Beneath  some  sudden  gust ; 
Thy  forms  and  creeds  have  vanished, 
Tossed  out  to  wither  like  unsightly  weeds 
From  the  world's  garden  banished. 


42  TO    THE    PAST. 

Whatever  of  true  life  there  was  in  thee 

Leaps  in  our  age's  veins  ; 
Wield  still  thy  bent  and  wrinkled  empery, 
And  shake  thine  idle  chains ;  — 
To  thee  thy  dross  is  clinging, 
For  us  thy  martyrs  die,  thy  prophets  see, 
Thy  poets  still  are  singing. 

Here,  'mid  the  bleak  waves  of  our  strife  and  care, 

Float  the  green  Fortunate  Isles 
Where  all  thy  hero-spirits  dwell,  and  share 
Our  martyrdoms  and  toils ; 
The  present  moves  attended 
With  all  of  brave  and  excellent  and  fair 
That  made  the  old  time  splendid. 


TO   THE   FUTURE. 


0  Land  of  Promise  !  from  what  Pisgah's  height 
Can  I  behold  thy  stretch  of  peaceful  bowers, 
Thy  golden  harvests  flowing  out  of  sight, 

Thy  nestled  homes  and  sun-illumined  towers  ? 
Gazing  upon  the  sunset's  high-heaped  gold, 
Its  crags  of  opal  and  of  chrysolite, 

Its  deeps  on  deeps  of  glory,  that  unfold 
Still  brightening  abysses, 
And  blazing  precipices, 
Whence  but  a  scanty  leap  it  seems  to  heaven, 
Sometimes  a  glimpse  is  given 
Of  thy  more  gorgeous  realm,  thy  more  unstinted  blisses. 


44 


TO    THE    FUTURE. 


O  Land  of  Quiet !  to  thy  shore  the  surf 

Of  the  perturbed  Present  rolls  and  sleeps ; 
Our  storms  breathe  soft  as  June  upon  thy  turf 
And  lure  out  blossoms ;  to  thy  bosom  leaps, 
As  to  a  mother's,  the  o'erwearied  heart, 
Hearing  far  off  and  dim  the  toiling  mart, 

The  hurrying  feet,  the  curses  without  number, 
And,  circled  with  the  glow  Elysian 
Of  thine  exulting  vision, 
Out  of  its  very  cares  woos  charms  for  peace  and  slumber. 

To  thee  the  Earth  lifts  up  her  fettered  hands 

And  cries  for  vengeance  ;  with  a  pitying  smile 
Thou  blessest  her,  and  she  forgets  her  bands, 

And  her  old  woe-worn  face  a  little  while 
Grows  young  and  noble  ;  unto  thee  the  Oppressor 
Looks,  and  is  dumb  with  awe ; 
The  eternal  law, 
Which  makes  the  crime  its  own  blindfold  redresser, 
Shadows  his  heart  with  perilous  foreboding, 
And  he  can  see  the  grim-eyed  Doom 
From  out  the  trembling  gloom 
Its  silent-footed  steeds  toward  his  palace  goading. 


TO    THE    FUTURE.  45 

What  promises  hast  thou  for  Poets'  eyes, 
Aweary  of  the  turmoil  and  the  wrong ! 
To  all  their  hopes  what  overjoyed  replies  ! 

What  undreamed  ecstasies  for  blissful  song  ! 
Thy  happy  plains  no  war-trump's  brawling  clangor 

Disturbs,  and  fools  the  poor  to  hate  the  poor  ; 
The  humble  glares  not  on  the  high  with  anger  ; 

Love  leaves  no  grudge  at  less,  no  greed  for  more ; 
In  vain  strives  Self  the  godlike  sense  to  smother ; 
From  the  soul's  deeps 
It  throbs  and  leaps  ; 
The  noble  'neath  foul  rags  beholds  his  long-lost  brother. 

To  thee  the  Martyr  looketh,  and  his  fires 

Unlock  their  fangs  and  leave  his  spirit  free  ; 
To  thee  the  Poet  'mid  his  toil  aspires, 

And  grief  and  hunger  climb  about  his  knee, 
Welcome  as  children  ;  thou  upholdest 

The  lone  Inventor  by  his  demon  haunted  ; 
The  Prophet  cries  to  thee  when  hearts  are  coldest, 
And,  gazing  o'er  the  midnight's  bleak  abyss, 
Sees  the  drowsed  soul  awaken  at  thy  kiss, 
And  stretch  its  happy  arms  and  leap  up  disenchanted. 


46  TO    THE    FUTURE. 

Thou  bringest  vengeance,  but  so  loving-kindly 

The  guilty  thinks  it  pity  ;  taught  by  thee, 
Fierce  tyrants  drop  the  scourges  wherewith  blindly 
Their  own  souls  they  were  scarring;   conquerors 
see 
With  horror  in  their  hands  the  accursed  spear 
That  tore  the  meek  One's  side  on  Calvary, 
And  from  their  trophies  shrink  with  ghastly  fear ; 
Thou,  too,  art  the  Forgiver, 
The  beauty  of  man's  soul  to  man  revealing ; 
The  arrows  from  thy  quiver 
Pierce  error's  guilty  heart,  but  only  pierce  for  healing. 

O,  whither,  whither,  glory-winged  dreams, 

From  out  Life's  sweat  and  turmoil  would  ye  bear 
me? 
Shut,  gates  of  Fancy,  on  your  golden  gleams,  — 

This  agony  of  hopeless  contrast  spare  me  ! 
Fade,  cheating  glow,  and  leave  me  to  my  night ! 
He  is  a  coward,  who  would  borrow 
A  charm  against  the  present  sorrow 
From  the  vague  Future's  promise  of  delight : 


TO    THE    FUTURE.  47 

As  life's  alarums  nearer  roll, 
The  ancestral  buckler  calls, 
Self-clanging,  from  the  walls 
In  the  high  temple  of  the  soul ; 
Where  are  most  sorrows,  there  the  poet's  sphere  is, 
To  feed  the  soul  with  patience, 
To  heal  its  desolations 
With   words   of   unshorn   truth,  with   love   that   never 
wearies. 


48 


HEBE. 


I  saw  the  twinkle  of  white  leei, 
I  saw  the  flash  of  robes  descending ; 

Before  her  ran  an  influence  fleet, 
That  bowed  my  heart  like  barley  bending. 

As,  in  bare  fields,  the  searching  bees 
Pilot  to  blooms  beyond  our  finding, 

It  led  me  on,  by  sweet  degrees 
Joy's  simple  honey-cells  unbinding. 

Those  Graces  were  that  seemed  grim  Fates ; 
With  nearer  love  the  sky  leaned  o'er  me  ; 

The  long-sought  Secret's  golden  gates 
On  musical  hinges  swung  before  me. 


HEBE.  49 

I  saw  the  brimmed  bowl  in  her  grasp 
Thrilling  with  godhood ;  like  a  lover 

I  sprang  the  proffered  life  to  clasp ;  — 
The  beaker  fell ;  the  luck  was  over. 

The  Earth  has  drunk  the  vintage  up  ; 
What  boots  it  patch  me  goblet's  splinters  ? 

Can  Summer  fill  the  icy  cup, 
Whose  treacherous  crystal  is  but  Winter's  ? 

O  spendthrift  Haste !  await  the  Gods ; 
Their  nectar  crowns  the  lips  of  Patience  ; 

Haste  scatters  on  unthankful  sods 
The  immortal  gift  in  vain  libations. 

Coy  Hebe  flies  from  those  that  woo, 
And  shuns  the  hands  would  seize  upon  her ; 

Follow  thy  life,  and  she  will  sue 
To  pour  for  thee  the  cup  of  honor. 


50 


THE  SEARCH. 


I  went  to  seek  for  Christ, 
And  Nature  seemed  so  fair 
That  first  the  woods  and  fields  my  youth  enticed, 
And  I  was  sure  to  find  him  there  : 
The  temple  I  forsook, 
And  to  the  solitude 
Allegiance  paid  ;  but  Winter  came  and  shook 
The  crown  and  purple  from  my  wood  ; 
His  snows,  like  desert  sands,  with  scornful  drift, 
Besieged  the  columned  aisle  and  palace-gate  ; 
My  Thebes,  cut  deep  with  many  a  solemn  rift, 

But  epitaphed  her  own  sepulchred  state  : 
Then  I  remembered  whom  I  went  to  seek, 
And  blessed  blunt  Winter  for  his  council  bleak. 


THE    SEARCH.  51 

Back  to  the  world  I  turned, 
For  Christ,  I  said,  is  King  ; 
So  the  cramped  alley  and  the  hut  I  spurned, 
As  far  beneath  his  sojourning : 

'Mid  power  and  wealth  I  sought, 
But  found  no  trace  of  him, 
And  all  the  costly  offerings  I  had  brought 

With  sudden  rust  and  mould  grew  dim : 
I  found  his  tomb,  indeed,  where,  by  their  laws, 
All  must  on  stated  days  themselves  imprison, 
Mocking  with  bread  a  dead  creed's  grinning  jaws, 

Witless  how  long  the  life  had  thence  arisen  ; 
Due  sacrifice  to  this  they  set  apart, 
Prizing  it  more  than  Christ's  own  living  heart. 

So  from  my  feet  the  dust 
Of  the  proud  World  I  shook ; 
Then  came  dear  Love  and  shared  with  me  his  crust, 
And  half  my  sorrow's  burden  took. 
After  the  World's  soft  bed, 
Its  rich  and  dainty  fare, 
Like  down  seemed  Love's  coarse  pillow  to  my  head, 
His  cheap  food  seemed  as  manna  rare  ; 


52  THE    SEARCH. 

Fresh-trodden  prints  of  bare  and  bleeding  feet, 
Turned  to  the  heedless  city  whence  I  came, 

Hard  by  I  saw,  and  springs  of  worship  sweet 

Gushed  from  my  cleft  heart  smitten  by  the  same  ; 

Love  looked  me  in  the  face  and  spake  no  words, 

But  straight  I  knew  those  foot-prints  were  the  Lord's. 

I  followed  where  they  led, 
And  in  a  hovel  rude, 
With  naught  to  fence  the  weather  from  his  head, 
The  King  I  sought  for  meekly  stood ; 
A  naked,  hungry  child 
Clung  round  his  gracious  knee, 
And  a  poor  hunted  slave  looked  up  and  smiled 

To  bless  the  smile  that  set  him  free  ; 
New  miracles  I  saw  his  presence  do,  — 

No  more  I  knew  the  hovel  bare  and  poor, 
The  gathered  chips  into  a  woodpile  grew, 

The  broken  morsel  swelled  to  goodly  store ; 
I  knelt  and  wept :  my  Christ  no  more  I  seek, 
His  throne  is  with  the  outcast  and  the  weak. 


53 


THE   PRESENT  CRISIS. 


When  a  deed  is  done  for  Freedom,  through  the  broad 
earth's  aching  breast 

Runs  a  thrill  of  joy  prophetic,  trembling  on  from  east 
to  west, 

And  the  slave,  where'er  he  cowers,  feels  the  soul 
within  him  climb 

To  the  awful  verge  of  manhood,  as  the  energy  sub- 
lime 

Of  a  century  bursts  full-blossomed  on  the  thorny  stem 
of  Time. 


54  THE    PRESENT    CRISIS. 

Through  the  walls  of  hut  and  palace  shoots  the  instan- 
taneous throe, 

When  the  travail  of  the  Ages  wrings  earth's  systems  to 
and  fro ; 

At  the  birth  of  each  new  Era,  with  a  recognizing 
start, 

Nation  wildly  looks  at  nation,  standing  with  mute  lips 
apart, 

And  glad  Truth's  yet  mightier  man-child  leaps  beneath 
the  Future's  heart. 

So  the   Evil's  triumph  sendeth,  with  a  terror  and   a 

chill, 
Under    continent  to    continent,  the   sense   of  coming 

iU, 

And  the  slave,  where'er  he  cowers,  feels  his  sympathies 

with  God 
In  hot  tear-drops  ebbing  earthward,  to  be  drunk  up  by 

the  sod, 
Till   a  corpse   crawls  round  unburied,  delving   in  the 

nobler  clod. 


THE    PRESENT    CRISIS.  55 

For  mankind  are  one  in  spirit,  and  an  instinct  bears 

along, 
Round  the  earth's  electric  circle,  the  swift  flash  of  right 

or  wrong ; 
Whether  conscious  or  unconscious,  yet  Humanity's  vast 

frame 
Through  its  ocean-sundered  fibres  feels  the  gush  of  joy 

or  shame ;  — 
In  the  gain  or  loss  of  one  race  all  the  rest  have  equal 

claim. 

/       Once  to  every  man  and  nation  comes  the  moment  to 

decide, 
In  the  strife  of  Truth  with  Falsehood,  for  the  good  or 

evil  side ; 
Some  great  cause,  God's  new  Messiah,  offering  each 

the  bloom  or  blight, 
Parts  the  goats  upon  the  left  hand,  and  the  sheep  upon 

the  right, 
And  the  choice  goes  by  for  ever  'twixt  that  darkness 

and  that  light. 


56  THE    PRESENT    CRISIS. 

Hast  thou  chosen,  O  my  people,  on  whose  party  thou 

shalt  stand, 
Ere  the  Doom  from  its  worn  sandals  shakes  the  dust 

against  our  land  ? 
Though  the  cause  of  Evil  prosper,  yet  't  is  Truth  alone 

is  strong, 
And,  albeit  she  wander  outcast  now,  I  see  around  her 

throng 
Troops  of  beautiful,  tall  angels,  to  enshield  her  from  all  / 

wrong. 

Backward  look  across  the  ages  and  the  beacon-moments 

see, 
That,  like  peaks  of  some  sunk  continent,  jut  through 

Oblivion's  sea ; 
Not  an  ear  in  court  or  market  for  the  low  foreboding 

cry 
Of  those  Crises,  God's  stern  winnowers,  from  whose 

feet  earth's  chaff  must  fly ; 
Never  shows  the  choice  momentous  till  the  judgment 

hath  passed  by. 


THE    PRESENT    CRISIS.  57 

Careless  seems  the  great  Avenger ;  history's  pages  but 

record 
One  death-grapple  in  the  darkness  'twixt  old  systems 

and  the  Word  ; 
Truth  for  ever  on  the  scaffold,  Wrong  for  ever  on  the 

throne,  — 
Yet  that  scaffold  sways  the  future,  and,  behind  the  dim 

unknown, 
Standeth  God  within  the  shadow,  keeping  watch  above 

his  own. 

We  see  dimly  in  the  Present  what  is  small  and  what  is 
great, 

Slow  of  faith  how  weak  an  arm  may  turn  the  iron  helm 
of  fate, 

But  the  soul  is  still  oracular;  amid  the  market's 
din, 

List  the  ominous  stern  whisper  from  the  Delphic  cave 
within,  — 

"  They  enslave  their  children's  children  who  make  com- 
promise with  sin." 


58  THE    PRESENT    CRISIS. 

Slavery,    the    earthborn    Cyclops,    fellest   of  the    giani 

brood, 
Sons  of  brutish  Force  and  Darkness,  who  have  drenched 

the  earth  with  blood, 
Famished  in  his  self-made  desert,  blinded  by  our  purer 

day, 
Gropes    in    yet    unblasted   regions   for    his   miserable 

prey;  — 
Shall   we   guide   his   gory  fingers  where  our   helpless 

children  play  ? 

Then  to  side  with  Truth  is  noble  when  we  share  her 
wretched  crust, 

Ere  her  cause  bring  fame  and  profit,  and  't  is  prosper- 
ous to  be  just ; 

Then  it  is  the  brave  man  chooses,  while  the  coward 
stands  aside, 

Doubting  in  his  abject  spirit,  till  his  Lord  is  cruci- 
fied, 

And  the  multitude  make  virtue  of  the  faith  they  had 
denied. 


THE    PRESENT    CRISIS. 


59 


Count  me  o'er  Earth's  chosen  heroes,  —  they  were 
souls  that  stood  alone 

While  the  men  they  agonized  for  hurled  the  contume- 
lious stone, 

Stood  serene  and  down  the  future  saw  the  golden  beam 
incline 

To  the  side  of  perfect  justice,  mastered  by  their  faith 
divine, 

By  one  man's  plain  truth  to  manhood  and  to  God's 
supreme  design. 

By  the  light  of  burning  heretics  Christ's  bleeding  feet 
I  track, 

Toiling  up  new  Calvaries  ever  with  the  cross  that  turns 
not  back, 

And  these  mounts  of  anguish  number  how  each  genera- 
tion learned 

One  new  word  of  that  grand  Credo  which  in  prophet- 
hearts  hath  burned 

Since  the  first  man  stood  God-conquered  with  his  face 
to  heaven  upturned. 


60  THE    PRESENT    CRISIS. 

For  Humanity  sweeps  onward :  where  to-day  the  mar- 
tyr stands, 

On  the  morrow  crouches  Judas  with  the  silver  in  his 
hands ; 

Far  in  front  the  cross  stands  ready  and  the  crackling 
fagots  burn, 

While  the  hooting  mob  of  yesterday  in  silent  awe 
return 

To  glean  up  the  scattered  ashes  into  History's  golden 
urn. 

T    is    as    easy    to    be    heroes    as    to    sit  the    idle 

slaves 
Of    a     legendary    virtue    carved    upon    our    fathers' 

graves ; 
Worshippers  of  light  ancestral  make  the  present  light 

a  crime  ;  — 
Was  the  Mayflower  launched  by  cowards,  steered  by 

men  behind  their  time  ? 
Turn  those  tracks  toward  Past  or  Future,   that  make 

Plymouth  rock  sublime  ?  • 


THE    PRESENT    CRISIS.  61 

They  were  men  of  present  valor,  stalwart  old  icono- 
clasts, 

Unconvinced  by  axe  or  gibbet  that  all  virtue  was  the 
Past's ; 

But  we  make  their  truth  our  falsehood,  thinking  that 
hath  made  us  free, 

Hoarding  it  in  mouldy  parchments,  while  our  tender 
spirits  flee 

The  rude  grasp  of  that  great  Impulse  which  drove  them 
across  the  sea. 

They  have  rights  who  dare  maintain  them ;  we  are 
traitors  to  our  sires, 

Smothering  in  their  holy  ashes  Freedom's  new-lit  altar- 
fires; 

Shall  we  make  their  creed  our  jailer  ?  Shall  we,  in  our 
haste  to  slay, 

From  the  tombs  of  the  old  prophets  steal  the  funeral 
lamps  away 

To  light  up  the  martyr-fagots  round  the  prophets  of 
to-day  ? 


K)Z  THE    PRESENT    CRISIS. 

New  occasions  teach  new  duties ;  Time  makes  ancient 
good  uncouth  ; 

They  must  upward  still,  and  onward,  who  would  keep 
abreast  of  Truth ; 

Lo,  before  us  gleam  her  camp-fires  !  we  ourselves  must 
Pilgrims  be, 

Launch  our  Mayflower,  and  steer  boldly  through  the 
desperate  winter  sea, 

Nor  attempt  the  Future's  portal  with  the  Past's  blood- 
rusted  key. 

December,  1845. 


SUMMER  STORM. 


Untbemulotjs  in  the  river  clear, 
Toward  the  sky's  image,  hangs  the  imaged  bridge  ; 

So  still  the  air,  that  I  can  hear 
The  slender  clarion  of  the  unseen  midge ; 

Out  of  the  stillness,  with  a  gathering  creep, 
Like  rising  wind  in  leaves,  which  now  decreases, 
Now  lulls,  now  swells,  and  all  the  while  increases, 

The  huddling  trample  of  a  drove  of  sheep 
Tilts  the  loose  planks,  and  then  as  gradually  ceases 

In  dust  on  the  other  side  ;  life's  emblem  deep, 
A  confused  noise  between  two  silences, 
Finding  at  last  in  dust  precarious  peace. 


64  SUMMER    STORM. 

On  the  wide  marsh  the  purple-blossomed  grasses 
Soak  up  the  sunshine  ;  sleeps  the  brimming  tide, 

Save  when  the  wedge-shaped  wake  in  silence  passes 
Of  some  slow  water-rat,  whose  sinuous  glide 
Wavers  the  long  green  sedge's  shade  from  side  to  side  ; 

But  up  the  west,  like  a  rock-shivered  surge, 

Climbs  a  great  cloud  edged  with  sun-whitened  spray  ; 

Huge  whirls  of  foam  boil  toppling  o'er  its  verge, 
And  falling  still  it  seems,  and  yet  it  climbs  alway. 

Suddenly  all  the  sky  is  hid 

As  with  the  shutting  of  a  lid, 
One  by  one  great  drops  are  falling 

Doubtful  and  slow, 
Down  the  pane  they  are  crookedly  crawling, 

And  the  wind  breathes  low ; 
Slowly  the  circles  widen  on  the  river, 

Widen  and  mingle,  one  and  all ; 
Here  and  there  the  slenderer  flowers  shiver, 

Struck  by  an  icy  rain-drop's  fall. 

Now  on  the  hills  I  hear  the  thunder  mutter, 
The  wind  is  gathering  in  the  west ; 


SUMMER    STORM.  65 

The  upturned  leaves  first  whiten  and  flutter, 

Then  droop  to  a  fitful  rest ; 
Up  from  the  stream  with  sluggish  flap 

Struggles  the  gull,  and  floats  away  ; 
Nearer  and  nearer  rolls  the  thunder-clap, — 

We  shall  not  see  the  sun  go  down  to-day  : 
Now  leaps  the  wind  on  the  sleepy  marsh, 

And  tramples  the  grass  with  terrified  feet, 
The  startled  river  turns  leaden  and  harsh, 

You  can  hear  the  quick  heart  of  the  tempest  beat. 

Look  !  look !  that  livid  flash  ! 
And  instantly  follows  the  rattling  thunder, 
As  if  some  cloud-crag,  split  asunder, 

Fell,  splintering  with  a  ruinous  crash, 
On  the  Earth,  which  crouches  in  silence  under ; 

And  now  a  solid  gray  wall  of  rain 
Shuts  off  the  landscape,  mile  by  mile ; 

For  a  breath's  space  I  see  the  blue  wood  again, 
And,  ere  the  next  heart-beat,  the  wind-hurled  pile, 
That  seemed  but  now  a  league  aloof, 
Bursts  rattling  over  the  sun-parched  roof ; 
5 


66 


SUMMER    STORM. 


Against  the  windows  the  storm  comes  dashing, 
Through  tattered  foliage  the  hail  tears  crashing, 
The  blue  lightning  flashes, 
The  rapid  hail  clashes, 
The  white  waves  are  tumbling, 

And,  in  one  baffled  roar, 
Like  the  toothless  sea  mumbling 

A  rock-bristled  shore, 
The  thunder  is  rumbling 
And  crashing  and  crumbling,  — 
Will  silence  return  never  more  ? 

Hush !     Still  as  death, 
The  tempest  holds  his  breath 
As  from  a  sudden  will ; 
The  rain  stops  short,  but  from  the  eaves 
You  see  it  drop,  and  hear  it  from  the  leaves, 
All  is  so  bodingly  still ; 
Again,  now,  now,  again 
Plashes  the  rain  in  heavy  gouts, 
The  crinkled  lightning 
Seems  ever  brightening, 


SUMMER    STORM.  67 

And  loud  and  long 
Again  the  thunder  shouts 

His  battle-song,  — 
One  quivering  flash, 
One  wildering  crash, 
Followed  by  silence  dead  and  dull, 
As  if  the  cloud,  let  go, 
Leapt  bodily  below 
To  whelm  the  earth  in  one  mad  overthrow, 
And  then  a  total  lull. 

Gone,  gone,  so  soon ! 
No  more  my  half-crazed  fancy  there 
Can  shape  a  giant  in  the  air, 
No  more  I  see  his  streaming  hair, 
The  writhing  portent  of  his  form ;  — 
The  pale  and  quiet  moon 
Makes  her  calm  forehead  bare, 
And  the  last  fragments  of  the  storm, 
Like  shattered  rigging  from  a  fight  at  sea, 
Silent  and  few,  are  drifting  over  me. 
1839. 


68 


THE  GROWTH  OF  THE  LEGEND. 


A  FRAGMENT. 


A  legend  that  grew  in  the  forest's  hush 
Slowly  as  tear-drops  gather  and  gush, 
When  a  word  some  poet  chanced  to  say- 
Ages  ago,  in  his  careless  way, 
Brings  our  youth  back  to  us  out  of  its  shroud 
Clearly  as  under  yon  thunder-cloud 
I  see  that  white  sea-gull.     It  grew  and  grew, 
From  the  pine-trees  gathering  a  sombre  hue, 
Till  it  seems  a  mere  murmur  out  of  the  vast 
Norwegian  forests  of  the  past ; 
And  it  grew  itself  like  a  true  Northern  pine, 
First  a  little  slender  line, 


THE    GROWTH    OF    THE    LEGEND.  69 

Like  a  mermaid's  green  eyelash,  and  then  anon 
A  stem  that  a  tower  might  rest  upon, 
Standing  spear-straight  in  the  waist-deep  moss, 
Its  bony  roots  clutching  around  and  across, 
As  if  they  would  tear  up  earth's  heart  in  their  grasp 
Ere  the  storm  should  uproot  them  or  make  them  unclasp  ; 
Its  cloudy  boughs  singing,  as  suiteth  the  pine, 
To  shrunk  snow-bearded  sea-kings  old  songs  of  the  brine, 
Till  they  straightened  and  let  their  staves  fall  to  the  floor, 
Hearing  waves  moan  again  on  the  perilous  shore 
Of  Vinland,  perhaps,  while  their  prow  groped  its  way 
'Twixt  the  frothy  gnashed  tusks  of  some  ship-crunching 
bay. 

So,  pine-like,  the  legend  grew,  strong-limbed  and  tall, 
As  the  Gypsy  child  grows  that  eats  crusts  in  the  hall ; 
It  sucked  the  whole  strength  of  the  earth  and  the  sky, 
Spring,  Summer,  Fall,  Winter,  all  brought  it  supply, 
'T  was  a  natural  growth,  and  stood  fearlessly  there, 
A  true  part  of  the  landscape  as  sea,  land,  and  air  ; 
For  it  grew  in  good  times,  ere  the  fashion  it  was 
To  force  up  these  wild  births  of  the  woods  under  glass, 


70  THE    GROWTH   OF    THE    LEGEND. 

And  so,  if  't  is  told  as  it  should  be  told, 

Though   't   were    sung    under   Venice's   moonlight  of 

gold, 
You  would  hear  the  old  voice  of  its  mother,  the  pine, 
Murmur  sealike  and  Northern  through  every  line, 
And  the  verses  should  hang,  self-sustained  and  free, 
Round  the  vibrating  stem  of  the  melody, 
Like  the  lithe  sun-steeped  limbs  of  the  parent  tree. 

Yes,  the  pine  is  the  mother  of  legends  ;  what  food 
For  their  grim  roots  is  left  when  the  thousand-yeared 

wood  — 
The  dim-aisled  cathedral,  whose  tall  arches  spring 
Light,  sinewy,  graceful,  firm-set  as  the  wing 
From  Michael's  white  shoulder  —  is  hewn  and  defaced 
By  iconoclast  axes  in  desperate  waste, 
And  its  wrecks  seek  the  ocean  it  prophesied  long, 
Cassandra-like,  crooning  its  mystical  song  ? 
Then  the  legends  go  with  them,  —  even  yet  on  the  sea 
A  wild  virtue  is  left  in  the  touch  of  the  tree, 
And  the  sailor's  night-watches  are  thrilled  to  the  core 
With  the  lineal  offspring  of  Odin  and  Thor. 


THE    GROWTH    OF    THE    LEGEND.  71 

Yes,  wherever  the  pine- wood  has  never  let  in, 
Since  the  day  of  creation,  the  light  and  the  din 
Of  manifold  life,  but  has  safely  conveyed 
From  the  midnight  primeval  its  armful  of  shade, 
And  has  kept  the  weird  Past  with  its  sagas  alive 
Within  sound  of  the  hum  of  To-day rs  busy  hive, 
There  the  legend  takes  root  in  the  age-gathered  gloom, 
And  its  murmurous  boughs  for  their  tossing  find  room. 

Where  Aroostook,  far-heard,  seems  to  sob  as  he  goes 
Groping  down  to  the  sea  'neath  Ins  mountainous  snows  ; 
Where  the  lake's  frore  Sahara  of  never-tracked  white, 
When  the  crack  shoots  across  it,  complains  to  the  night 
With  a  long,  lonely  moan,  that  leagues  northward  is  lost, 
As  the  ice  shrinks  away  from  the  tread  of  the  frost ; 
Where  the  lumberers  sit  by  the  log-fires  which  throw 
Their  own  threatening  shadows  far  round  o'er  the  snow, 
When  the  wolf  howls  aloof,  and  the  wavering  glare 
Flashes  out  from  the  blackness  the  eyes  of  the  bear, 
When  the  wood's  huge  recesses,  half-lighted,  supply 
A  canvas  where  Fancy  her  mad  brush  may  try, 


72  THE  GROWTH  OF  THE  LEGEND. 

Blotting  in  giant  Horrors  that  venture  not  down 
Through   the  right-angled  streets  of  the  brisk,  white- 
washed town, 
But  skulk  in  the  depths  of  the  measureless  wood 
'Mid  the  Dark's  creeping  whispers  that  curdle  the  blood, 
When  the  eye,  glanced  in  dread  o'er  the  shoulder,  may 

dream, 
Ere  it  shrinks  to  the  camp-fire's  companioning  gleam, 
That  it  saw  the  fierce  ghost  of  the  Red  Man  crouch  back 
To  the  shroud  of  the  tree-trunk's  invincible  black  ;  — 
There   the  old  shapes   crowd   thick    round   the   pine- 
shadowed  camp, 
Which  shun  the  keen  gleam  of  the  scholarly  lamp, 
And  the  seed  of  the  legend  finds  true  Norland  ground, 
While  the  border-tale  's  told  and  the  canteen  flits  round. 


73 


A  CONTRAST 


Thy  love  thou  sentest  oft  to  me, 
And  still  as  oft  I  thrust  it  back ; 

Thy  messengers  I  could  not  see 

In  those  who  every  thing  did  lack,  — 
The  poor,  the  outcast,  and  the  black. 

Pride  held  his  hand  before  mine  eyes, 

The  world  with  flattery  stuffed  mine  ears  ; 

I  looked  to  see  a  monarch's  guise, 

Nor  dreamed  thy  love  would  knock  for  years, 
Poor,  naked,  fettered,  full  of  tears. 


74  A   CONTRAST. 

Yet,  when  I  sent  my  love  to  thee, 
Thou  with  a  smile  didst  take  it  in, 

And  entertain' dst  it  royally, 

Though  grimed  with  earth,  with  hunger  thin, 
And  leprous  with  the  taint  of  sin. 

Now  every  day  thy  love  I  meet, 
As  o'er  the  earth  it  wanders  wide, 

With  weary  step  and  bleeding  feet, 
Still  knocking  at  the  heart  of  pride 
And  offering  grace,  though  still  denied. 


75 


EXTREME  UNCTION. 


Go  !  leave  me,  Priest ;  my  soul  would  be 

Alone  with  the  consoler,  Death ; 
Far  sadder  eyes  than  thine  will  see 

This  crumbling  clay  yield  up  its  breath  ; 
These  shrivelled  hands  have  deeper  stains 

Than  holy  oil  can  cleanse  away,  — 
Hands  that  have  plucked  the  world's  coarse  gains 

As  erst  they  plucked  the  flowers  of  May. 

Call,  if  thou  canst,  to  those  gray  eyes 

Some  faith  from  youth's  traditions  wrung  ; 

This  fruitless  husk  which  dustward  dries 
Has  been  a  heart  once,  has  been  young ; 


76  EXTREME    UNCTION. 

On  this  bowed  head  the  awful  Past 
Once  laid  its  consecrating  hands  ; 

The  Future  in  its  purpose  vast 

Paused,  waiting  my  supreme  commands. 

But  look !  whose  shadows  block  the  door  ? 

Who  are  those  two  that  stand  aloof  ? 
See  !  on  my  hands  this  freshening  gore 

Writes  o'er  again  its  crimson  proof ! 
My  looked-for  death-bed  guests  are  met ;  — 

There  my  dead  Youth  doth  wring  its  hands, 
And  there,  with  eyes  that  goad  me  yet, 

The  ghost  of  my  Ideal  stands  ! 

God  bends  from  out  the  deep  and  says,  — 

"  I  gave  thee  the  great  gift  of  life  ; 
Wast  thou  not  called  in  many  ways  ? 

Are  not  my  earth  and  heaven  at  strife  ? 
I  gave  thee  of  my  seed  to  sow, 

Bringest  thou  me  my  hundred-fold  ?  " 
Can  I  look  up  with  face  aglow, 

And  answer,  "  Father,  here  is  gold  "  ? 


EXTREME    UNCTION.  77 

I  have  been  innocent ;  God  knows 

When  first  this  wasted  life  began, 
Not  grape  with  grape  more  kindly  grows, 

Than  I  with  every  brother-man : 
Now  here  I  gasp ;  what  lose  my  kind, 

When  this  fast-ebbing  breath  shall  part  ? 
What  bands  of  love  and  service  bind 

This  being  to  the  world's  sad  heart  ? 

Christ  still  was  wandering  o'er  the  earth 

Without  a  place  to  lay  his  head  ; 
He  found  free  welcome  at  my  hearth, 

He  shared  my  cup  and  brake  my  bread : 
Now,  when  I  hear  those  steps  sublime, 

That  bring  the  other  world  to  this, 
My  snake-turned  nature,  sunk  in  slime, 

Starts  side  way  with  defiant  hiss. 

Upon  the  hour  when  I  was  born, 

God  said,  "  Another  man  shall  be," 
And  the  great  Maker  did  not  scorn 

Out  of  himself  to  fashion  me  : 


78  EXTREME    UNCTION. 

He  sunned  me  with  his  ripening  looks, 
And  Heaven's  rich  instincts  in  me  grew, 

As  effortless  as  woodland  nooks 

Send  violets  up  and  paint  them  blue. 

Yes,  I  who  now,  with  angry  tears, 

Am  exiled  back  to  brutish  clod, 
Have  borne  unquenched  for  fourscore  years 

A  spark  of  the  eternal  God  ; 
And  to  what  end  ?     How  yield  I  back 

The  trust  for  such  high  uses  given  ? 
Heaven's  light  hath  but  revealed  a  track 

Whereby  to  crawl  away  from  heaven. 

Men  think  it  is  an  awful  sight 

To  see  a  soul  just  set  adrift 
On  that  drear  voyage  from  whose  night 

The  ominous  shadows  never  lift  ; 
But 't  is  more  awful  to  behold 

A  helpless  infant  newly  born, 
Whose  little  hands  unconscious  hold 

The  keys  of  darkness  and  of  morn. 


EXTREME    UNCTION.  79 

Mine  held  them  once  ;  I  flung  away 

Those  keys  that  might  have  open  set 
The  golden  sluices  of  the  day, 

But  clutch  the  keys  of  darkness  yet ;  — 
I  hear  the  reapers  singing  go 

Into  God's  harvest ;  I,  that  might 
With  them  have  chosen,  here  below 

Grope  shuddering  at  the  gates  of  night. 

O  glorious  Youth,  that  once  wast  mine  ! 

O  high  Ideal !   all  in  vain 
Ye  enter  at  this  ruined  shrine 

Whence  worship  ne'er  shall  rise  again ; 
The  bat  and  owl  inhabit  here, 

The  snake  nests  in  the  altar-stone, 
The  sacred  vessels  moulder  near, 

The  image  of  the  God  is  gone. 


80 


THE   OAK. 


What  gnarled  stretch,  what  depth  of  shade,  is  his ! 

There  needs  no  crown  to  mark  the  forest's  king ; 
How  in  his  leaves  outshines  full  summer's  bliss ! 

Sun,  storm,  rain,  dew,  to  him  their  tribute  bring, 
Which  he  with  such  benignant  royalty 

Accepts,  as  overpayeth  what  is  lent ; 
All  nature  seems  his  vassal  proud  to  be, 

And  cunning  only  for  his  ornament. 

How  towers  he,  too,  amid  the  billowed  snows, 
An  unquelled  exile  from  the  summer's  throne, 

Whose  plain,  uncinctured  front  more  kingly  shows, 
Now  that  the  obscuring  courtier  leaves  are  flown ! 


THE    OAK.  81 

His  boughs  make  music  of  the  winter  air, 
Jewelled  with  sleet,  like  some  cathedral  front 

Where  clinging  snow-flakes  with  quaint  art  repair 
The  dents  and  furrows  of  Time's  envious  brunt. 

How  doth  his  patient  strength  the  rude  March  wind 

Persuade  to  seem  glad  breaths  of  summer  breeze, 
And  win  the  soil,  that  fain  would  be  unkind, 

To  swell  his  revenues  with  proud  increase ! 
He  is  the  gem ;  and  all  the  landscape  wide 

(So  doth  his  grandeur  isolate  the  sense) 
Seems  but  the  setting,  worthless  all  beside, 

An  empty  socket,  were  he  fallen  thence. 

So,  from  oft  converse  with  life's  wintry  gales, 

Should  man  learn  how  to  clasp  with  tougher  roots 
The  inspiring  earth ;  —  how  otherwise  avails 

The  leaf-creating  sap  that  sunward  shoots  ? 
So  every  year  that  falls  with  noiseless  flake 

Should  fill  old  scars  up  on  the  storm  ward  side, 
And  make  hoar  age  revered  for  age's  sake, 

Not  for  traditions  of  youth's  leafy  pride. 
6 


82  THE    OAK. 

So,  from  the  pinched  soil  of  a  churlish  fate, 

True  hearts  compel  the  sap  of  sturdier  growth, 
So  between  earth  and  heaven  stand  simply  great, 

That  these  shall  seem  but  their  attendants  both  ; 
For  nature's  forces  with  obedient  zeal 

Wait  on  the  rooted  faith  and  oaken  will ; 
As  quickly  the  pretender's  cheat  they  feel, 

And  turn  mad  Pucks  to  flout  and  mock  him  still. 

Lord  !  all  thy  works  are  lessons,  —  each  contains 

Some  emblem  of  man's  all-containing  soul ; 
Shall  he  make  fruitless  all  thy  glorious  pains, 

Delving  within  thy  grace  an  eyeless  mole  ? 
Make  me  the  least  of  thy  Dodona-grove, 

Cause  me  some  message  of  thy  truth  to  bring, 
but  a  word  through  me,  nor  let  thy  love 

Among  my  boughs  disdain  to  perch  and  sing. 


AMBROSE. 


Never,  surely,  was  holier  man 

Than  Ambrose,  since  the  world  began  ; 

With  diet  spare  and  raiment  thin, 

He  shielded  himself  from  the  father  of  sin ; 

With  bed  of  iron  and  scourgings  oft, 

His  heart  to  God's  hand  as  wax  made  soft. 

Through  earnest  prayer  and  watchings  long 
He  sought  to  know  'twixt  right  and  wrong, 
Much  wrestling  with  the  blessed  Word 
To  make  it  yield  the  sense  of  the  Lord, 
That  he  might  build  a  storm-proof  creed 
To  fold  the  flock  in  at  their  need. 


84  AMBROSE. 

At  last  he  builded  a  perfect  faith, 
Fenced  round  about  with  The  Lord  thus  saith  ; 
To  himself  he  fitted  the  doorway's  size, 
Meted  the  light  to  the  need  of  his  eyes, 
And  knew,  by  a  sure  and  inward  sign, 
That  the  work  of  his  fingers  was  divine. 

Then  Ambrose  said,  "  All  those  shall  die 
The  eternal  death  who  believe  not  as  I "  ; 
And  some  were  boiled,  some  burned  in  fire, 
Some  sawn  in  twain,  that  his  heart's  desire, 
For  the  good  of  men's  souls,  might  be  satisfied, 
By  the  drawing  of  all  to  the  righteous  side. 

One  day,  as  Ambrose  was  seeking  the  truth 

In  his  lonely  walk,  he  saw  a  youth 

Resting  himself  in  the  shade  of  a  tree  ; 

It  had  never  been  given  him  to  see 

So  shining  a  face,  and  the  good  man  thought, 

'T  were  pity  he  should  not  believe  as  he  ought. 

So  he  sat  himself  by  the  young  man's  side, 
And  the  state  of  his  soul  with  questions  tried  ; 


AMBROSE.  85 

But  the  heart  of  the  stranger  was  hardened  indeed, 
Nor  received  the  stamp  of  the  one  true  creed, 
And  the  spirit  of  Ambrose  waxed  sore  to  find 
Such  face  in  front  of  so  narrow  a  mind. 

"  As  each  beholds  in  cloud  and  fire 

The  shape  that  answers  his  own  desire, 

So  each,"  said  the  youth,  "  in  the  Law  shall  find 

The  figure  and  features  of  his  mind ; 

And  to  each  in  his  mercy  hath  God  allowed 

His  several  pillar  of  fire  and  cloud.1' 

The  soul  of  Ambrose  burned  with  zeal 
And  holy  wrath  for  the  young  man's  weal : 
"  Believest  thou,  then,  most  wretched  youth," 
Cried  he,  "a  dividual  essence  in  Truth  ? 
I  fear  me  thy  heart  is  too  cramped  with  sin 
To  take  the  Lord  in  his  glory  in." 

Now  there  bubbled  beside  them,  where  they  stood, 

A  fountain  of  waters  sweet  and  good; 

The  youth  to  the  streamlet's  brink  drew  near 

Saying,  "  Ambrose,  thou  maker  of  creeds,  look  here  !  " 


86  AMRROSE. 

Six  vases  of  crystal  then  he  took, 

And  set  them  along  the  edge  of  the  brook. 

"  As  into  these  vessels  the  water  I  pour, 
There  shall  one  hold  less,  another  more, 
And  the  water  unchanged,  in  every  case, 
Shall  put  on  the  figure  of  the  vase  ; 
O  thou,  who  wouldst  unity  make  through  strife, 
Canst  thou  fit  this  sign  to  the  Water  of  Life  ?  " 

When  Ambrose  looked  up,  he  stood  alone, 

The  youth  and  the  stream  and  the  vases  were  gone  ; 

But  he  knew,  by  a  sense  of  humbled  grace, 

He  had  talked  with  an  angel,  face  to  face, 

And  felt  his  heart  change  inwardly, 

As  he  fell  on  his  knees  beneath  the  tree. 


87 


ABOVE  AND  BELOW. 


O  dwellers  in  the  valley-land, 

Who  in  deep  twilight  grope  and  cower, 
Till  the  slow  mountain's  dial-hand 

Shortens  to  noon's  triumphal  hour,  — 
While  ye  sit  idle,  do  ye  think 

The  Lord's  great  work  sits  idle  too  ? 
That  light  dare  not  o'erleap  the  brink 

Of  morn,  because  't  is  dark  with  you  ? 

Though  yet  your  valleys  skulk  in  night, 
In  God's  ripe  fields  the  day  is  cried, 


88  ABOVE    AND    BELOW. 

And  reapers,  with  their  sickles  bright, 
Troop,  singing,  down  the  mountain-side  : 

Come  up,  and  feel  what  health  there  is 
In  the  frank  Dawn's  delighted  eyes, 

As,  bending  with  a  pitying  kiss, 

The  night-shed  tears  of  Earth  she  dries  ! 

The  Lord  wants  reapers :  O,  mount  up, 

Before  night  comes,  and  says,  —  "Too  late!" 
Stay  not  for  taking  scrip  or  cup, 

The  Master  hungers  while  ye  wait : 
'T  is  from  these  heights  alone  your  eyes 

The  advancing  spears  of  day  can  see, 
Which  o'er  the  eastern  hill-tops  rise, 

To  break  your  long  captivity. 


n. 


Lone  watcher  on  the  mountain-height ! 

It  is  right  precious  to  behold 
The  first  long  surf  of  climbing  light 

Flood  all  the  thirsty  east  with  gold  ; 


ABOVE   AND   BELOW.  89 

But  we,  who  in  the  shadow  sit, 

Know  also  when  the  day  is  nigh, 
Seeing  thy  shining  forehead  lit 

With  his  inspiring  prophecy. 

Thou  hast  thine  office  ;  we  have  ours  ; 

God  lacks  not  early  service  here, 
But  what  are  thine  eleventh  hours 

He  counts  with  us  for  morning  cheer ; 
Our  day,  for  Him,  is  long  enough, 

And  when  He  giveth  work  to  do, 
The  bruised  reed  is  amply  tough 

To  pierce  the  shield  of  error  through. 

But  not  the  less  do  thou  aspire 

Light's  earlier  messages  to  preach  ; 
Keep  back  no  syllable  of  fire,  — 

Plunge  deep  the  rowels  of  thy  speech. 
Yet  God  deems  not  thine  aeried  sight 

More  worthy  than  our  twilight  dim,  — 
For  meek  Obedience,  too,  is  Light, 

And  following  that  is  finding  Him. 


90 


THE  CAPTIVE. 


It  was  past  the  hour  of  trysting, 
But  she  lingered  for  him  still ; 

Like  a  child,  the  eager  streamlet 
Leaped  and  laughed  adown  the  hill, 

Happy  to  be  free  at  twilight 
From  its  toiling  at  the  mill. 

Then  the  great  moon  on  a  sudden, 
Ominous,  and  red  as  blood, 

Startling  as  a  new  creation, 
O'er  the  eastern  hill-top  stood, 


THE    CAPTIVE.  91 

Casting  deep  and  deeper  shadows 
Through  the  mystery  of  the  wood. 

Dread  closed  huge  and  vague  about  her, 

And  her  thoughts  turned  fearfully 
To  her  heart,  if  there  some  shelter 

From  the  silence  there  might  be, 
Like  bare  cedars  leaning  inland 

From  the  blighting  of  the 


Yet  he  came  not,  and  the  stillness 
Dampened  round  her  like  a  tomb ; 

She  could  feel  cold  eyes  of  spirits 
Looking  on  her  through  the  gloom, 

She  could  hear  the  groping  footsteps 
Of  some  blind,  gigantic  doom. 

Suddenly  the  silence  wavered 
Like  a  light  mist  in  the  wind, 

For  a  voice  broke  gently  through  it, 
Felt  like  sunshine  by  the  blind, 


92  THE    CAPTIVE. 

And  the  dread,  like  mist  in  sunshine, 
Furled  serenely  from  her  mind. 

"  Once  my  love,  my  love  for  ever,  — 
Flesh  or  spirit,  still  the  same  ; 

If  I  missed  the  hour  of  trysting, 
Do  not  think  my  faith  to  blame, 

I,  alas,  was  made  a  captive, 
As  from  Holy  Land  I  came. 

"  On  a  green  spot  in  the  desert, 
Gleaming  like  an  emerald  star, 

Where  a  palm-tree,  in  lone  silence, 
Yearning  for  its  mate  afar, 

Droops  above  a  silver  runnel, 
Slender  as  a  scymitar,  — 

"  There  thou  'It  find  the  humble  postern 

To  the  castle  of  my  foe  ; 
If  thy  love  burn  clear  and  faithful, 

Strike  the  gateway,  green  and  low, 


THE    CAPTIVE.  93 

Ask  to  enter,  and  the  warder 
Surely  will  not  say  thee  no." 

Slept  again  the  aspen  silence, 

But  her  loneliness  was  o'er ; 
Round  her  heart  a  motherly  patience 

Wrapt  its  arms  for  evermore  ; 
From  her  soul  ebbed  back  the  sorrow, 

Leaving  smooth  the  golden  shore. 

Donned  she  now  the  pilgrim  scallop, 

Took  the  pilgrim  staff  in  hand ; 
Like  a  cloud-shade,  flitting  eastward, 

Wandered  she  o'er  sea  and  land  ; 
Her  soft  footsteps  in  the  desert 

Fell  like  cool  rain  on  the  sand. 

Soon,  beneath  the  palm-tree's  shadow, 

Knelt  she  at  the  postern  low  ; 
And  thereat  she  knocketh  gently, 

Fearing  much  the  warder's  no  ; 


94  THE    CAPTIVE. 

All  her  heart  stood  still  and  listened, 
As  the  door  swung  backward  slow. 

There  she  saw  no  surly  warder 
With  an  eye  like  bolt  and  bar ; 

Through  her  soul  a  sense  of  music 
Throbbed,  —  and,  like  a  guardian  Lar, 

On  the  threshold  stood  an  angel, 
Bright  and  silent  as  a  star. 

Fairest  seemed  he  of  God's  seraphs, 

And  her  spirit,  lily-wise, 
Blossomed  when  he  turned  upon  her 

The  deep  welcome  of  his  eyes, 
Sending  upward  to  that  sunlight 

All  its  dew  for  sacrifice. 

Then  she  heard  a  voice  come  onward 
Singing  with  a  rapture  new, 

As  Eve  heard  the  songs  in  Eden, 
Dropping  earthward  with  the  dew ; 


THE    CAPTIVE.  95 

Well  she  knew  the  happy  singer, 
Well  the  happy  song  she  knew. 

Forward  leaped  she  o'er  the  threshold, 

Eager  as  a  glancing  surf ; 
Fell  from  her  the  spirit's  languor, 

Fell  from  her  the  body's  scurf ;  — 
'Neath  the  palm  next  day  some  Arabs 

Found  a  corpse  upon  the  turf. 


96 


THE   BIRCH-TREE. 


Rippling  througn  thy  branches  goes  the  sunshine. 
Among  thy  leaves  that  palpitate  for  ever ; 
Ovid  in  thee  a  pining  Nymph  had  prisoned, 
The  soul  once  of  some  tremulous  inland  river, 
Quivering  to  tell  her  woe,  but,  ah  !  dumb,  dumb  for  ever ! 

While  all  the  forest,  witched  with  slumberous  moonshine, 

Holds  up  its  leaves  in  happy,  happy  silence, 

Waiting  the  dew,  with  breath  and  pulse  suspended,  — 

I  hear  afar  thy  whispering,  gleamy  islands, 

And  track  thee  wakeful  still  amid  the  wide-hung  silence. 

Upon  the  brink  of  some  wood-nestled  lakelet, 
Thy  foliage,  like  the  tresses  of  a  Dryad, 


THE    BIKCH-TREE.  97 

Dripping  about  thy  slim  white  stem,  whose  shadow 
Slopes  quivering  down  the  water's  dusky  quiet, 
Thou   shrmk'st   as   on   her    bath's    edge   would   some 
startled  Dryad. 

Thou  art  the  go-between  of  rustic  lovers ; 
Thy  white  bark  has  their  secrets  in  its  keeping ; 
Reuben  writes  here  the  happy  name  of  Patience, 
And  thy  lithe  boughs  hang  murmuring  and  weeping 
Above  her,  as  she  steals  tne  mystery  from  thy  keeping. 

Thou  art  to  me  like  my  beloved  maiden, 

So  frankly  coy,  so  full  of  trembly  confidences ; 

Thy  shadow  scarce  seems  shade,  thy  pattering  leaflets 

Sprinkle  their  gathered  sunshine  o'er  my  senses, 

And  Nature  gives  me  all  her  summer  confiden. 

Whether  my  heart  with  hope  or  sorrow  tremblo, 
Thou  sympathizest  still ;  wild  and  unquiet, 
I  fling  me  down ;  thy  ripple,  like  a  river, 
Flows  valleyward,  where  calmness  is,  and  by  it 
My  heart  is  floated  down  into  the  land  of  quiet. 
7 


98 


AN  INTERVIEW  WITH  MILES  STANDISR 


1  sat  one  evening  in  my  room, 

In  that  sweet  hour  of  twilight 
When  blended  thoughts,  half  light,  half  gloom, 

Throng  through  the  spirit's  skylight ; 
The  flames  by  fits  curled  round  the  bars, 

Or  up  the  chimney  crinkled, 
While  embers  dropped  like  falling  stars, 

And  in  the  ashes  tinkled. 

I  sat  and  mused  ;  the  fire  burned  low, 

And,  o'er  my  senses  stealing, 
Crept  something  of  the  ruddy  glow 

That  bloomed  on  wall  and  ceiling ; 


AN    INTERVIEW    WITH    MILES    STANDISH.  99 

My  pictures  (they  are  very  few,  — 

The  heads  of  ancient  wise  men) 
Smoothed  down  their  knotted  fronts,  and  grew 

As  rosy  as  excisemen. 

My  antique  high-backed  Spanish  chair 

Felt  thrills  through  wood  and  leather, 
That  had  been  strangers  since  whilere, 

'Mid  Andalusian  heather, 
The  oak  that  made  its  sturdy  frame 

His  happy  arms  stretched  over 
The  ox  whose  fortunate  hide  became 

The  bottom's  polished  cover. 

It  came  out  in  that  famous  bark 

That  brought  our  sires  intrepid, 
Capacious  as  another  ark 

For  furniture  decrepid ;  — 
For,  as  that  saved  of  bird  and  beast 

A  pair  for  propagation, 
So  has  the  seed  of  these  increased 

And  furnished  half  the  nation. 


100  AN    INTERVIEW    WITH    MILES    STANDISH. 

Kings  sit,  they  say,  in  slippery  seats  ; 

But  those  slant  precipices 
Of  ice  the  northern  voyager  meets 

Less  slippery  are  than  this  is  ; 
To  cling  therein  would  pass  the  wit 

Of  royal  man  or  woman, 
And  whatsoe'er  can  stay  in  it 

Is  more  or  less  than  human. 

My  wonder,  then,  was  not  unmixed 

With  merciful  suggestion, 
When,  as  my  roving  eyes  grew  fixed 

Upon  the  chair  in  question, 
I  saw  its  trembling  arms  inclose 

A  figure  grim  and  rusty, 
Whose  doublet  plain  and  plainer  hose 

Were  something  worn  and  dusty. 

Now  even  such  men  as  Nature  forms 
Merely  to  fill  the  street  with, 

Once  turned  to  ghosts  by  hungry  worms, 
Are  serious  things  to  meet  with ; 


AN    INTERVIEW    WITH    MILES    STAKDISH.  101 

Your  penitent  spirits  are  no  jokes, 

And,  though  I  'm  not  averse  to 
A  quiet  shade,  even  they  are  folks 

One  cares  not  to  speak  first  to. 

Who  knows,  thought  I,  but  he  has  come, 

By  Charon  kindly  ferried, 
To  tell  me  of  a  mighty  sum 

Behind  my  wainscot  buried  ? 
There  is  a  buccaneerish  air 

About  that  garb  outlandish 

Just  then  the  ghost  drew  up  his  chair 

And  said,  "  My  name  is  Standish. 

"  I  come  from  Plymouth,  deadly  bored 

With  toasts,  and  songs,  and  speeches, 
As  long  and  flat  as  my  old  sword, 

As  threadbare  as  my  breeches  : 
They  understand  us  Pilgrims  !  they, 

Smooth  men  with  rosy  faces, 
Strength's  knots  and  gnarls  all  pared  away, 

And  varnish  in  their  places ! 


102  AN    INTERVIEW    WITH    MILES    STANDISH. 

"  We  had  some  toughness  in  our  grain, 

The  eye  to  rightly  see  us  is 
Not  just  the  one  that  lights  the  brain 

Of  drawing-room  Tyrtceuses  : 
They  talk  about  their  Pilgrim  blood, 

Their  birthright  high  and  holy  !  — 
A  mountain-stream  that  ends  in  mud 

Methinks  is  melancholy. 

"  He  had  stiff  knees,  the  Puritan, 

That  were  not  good  at  bending  ; 
The  homespun  dignity  of  man 

He  thought  was  worth  defending  ; 
He  did  not,  with  his  pinchbeck  ore, 

His  country's  shame  forgotten, 
Gild  Freedom's  coffin  o'er  and  o'er, 

When  all  within  was  rotten. 

11  These  loud  ancestral  boasts  of  yours, 
How  can  they  else  than  vex  us  ? 

Where  were  your  dinner  orators 
When  slavery  grasped  at  Texas  ? 


AN    INTERVIEW    WITH    MILES    STANDISH.  103 

Dumb  on  his  knees  was  every  one 

That  now  is  bold  as  Caesar,  — 
Mere  pegs  to  hang  an  office  on 

Such  stalwart  men  as  these  are." 

"  Good  Sir,"  I  said,  "  you  seem  much  stirred ; 

The  sacred  compromises " 

"  Now  God  confound  the  dastard  word  ! 

My  gall  thereat  arises : 
Northward  it  hath  this  sense  alone, 

That  you,  your  conscience  blinding, 
Shall  bow  your  fool's  nose  to  the  stone, 

When  slavery  feels  like  grinding. 

"  'T  is  shame  to  see  such  painted  sticks 

In  Vane's  and  Winthrop's  places, 
To  see  your  spirit  of  Seventy-six 

Drag  humbly  in  the  traces, 
With  slavery's  lash  upon  her  back, 

And  herds  of  office-holders 
To  shout  applause,  as,  with  a  crack, 

It  peels  her  patient  shoulders. 


104  AN    INTERVIEW    WITH    MILES    STANDISH. 

"  We  forefathers  to  such  a  rout !  — 

No,  by  my  faith  in  God's  word  ! " 
Half  rose  the  ghost,  and  half  drew  out 

The  ghost  of  his  old  broadsword, 
Then  thrust  it  slowly  back  again, 

And  said,  with  reverent  gesture, 
"  No,  Freedom,  no  !  blood  should  not  stain 

The  hem  of  thy  white  vesture. 

"  I  feel  the  soul  in  me  draw  near 

The  mount  of  prophesying ; 
In  this  bleak  wilderness  I  hear 

A  John  the  Baptist  crying ; 
Far  in  the  east  I  see  upleap 

The  streaks  of  first  forewarning, 
And  they  who  sowed  the  light  shall  reap 

The  golden  sheaves  of  morning. 

"  Child  of  our  travail  and  our  woe, 

Light  in  our  day  of  sorrow, 
Through  my  rapt  spirit  I  foreknow 

The  glory  of  thy  morrow  ; 


AN    INTERVIEW    WITH    MILES    STANDISH.  105 

I  hear  great  steps,  that  through  the  shade 

Draw  nigher  still  and  nigher, 
And  voices  call  like  that  which  bade 

The  prophet  come  up  higher  " 

I  looked,  no  form  mine  eyes  could  find, 

I  heard  the  red  cock  crowing, 
And  through  my  window-chinks  the  wind 

A  dismal  tune  was  blowing  ; 
Thought  I,  My  neighbour  Buckingham 

Hath  somewhat  in  him  gritty, 
Some  Pilgrim-stuff  that  hates  all  sham, 

And  he  will  print  my  ditty. 


106 


ON   THE   CAPTURE   OF  CERTAIN   FUGITIVE 
SLAVES  NEAR  WASHINGTON. 


Look  on   who   will   in   apathy,    and    stifle   they  who 

can, 
The  sympathies,  the  hopes,  the  words,  that  make  man 

truly  man ; 
Let  those  whose  hearts  are  dungeoned  up  with  interest 

or  with  ease 
Consent  to  hear  with  quiet  pulse  of  loathsome   deeds 

like  these ! 

I  first  drew  in  New  England's  air,  and  from  her  hardy 

breast 
Sucked  in  the  tyrant-hating  milk  that  will  not  let  me 

rest ; 


THE    CAPTURE. 


107 


And  if  my  words  seem  treason  to  the  dullard  and  the 

tame, 
'T  is  but  my  Bay-State  dialect,  —  our  fathers  spake  the 

same ! 

Shame   on   the    costly    mockery   of   piling    stone    on 

stone 
To  those  who  won   our  liberty,  the  heroes  dead  and 

gone, 
While  we  look  coldly  on,  and  see  law-shielded  ruffians 

slay 
The  men  who  fain  would  win  their  own,  the  heroes  of 

to-day ! 

Are  we  pledged  to  craven  silence  ?     O,  fling  it  to  the 

wind, 
The   parchment  wall   that   bars   us  from   the  least  of 

human  kind,  — 
That  makes  us  cringe,  and  temporize,  and  dumbly  stand 

at  rest, 
While  Pity's  burning  flood  of  words  is  red-hot  in  the 

breast ! 


108  THE    CAPTURE. 

Though  we  break  our  fathers'  promise,  we  have  nobler 
duties  first ; 

The  traitor  to  Humanity  is  the  traitor  most  ac- 
cursed ; 

Man  is  more  than  Constitutions ;  better  rot  beneath  the 
sod, 

Than  be  true  to  Church  and  State  while  we  are  doubly- 
false  to  God  ! 

We   owe  allegiance   to  the  State  ;    but  deeper,  truer, 

more, 
To  the  sympathies  that  God  hath  set  within  our  spirit's 

core  ;  — 
Our   country   claims   our   fealty ;    we   grant  it  so,  but 

then 
Before  Man  made  us  citizens,  great  Nature  made  us 

men. 

He  's  true  to  God  who  's  true  to  man ;  wherever  wrong 
is  done, 

To  the  humblest  and  the  weakest,  'neath  the  all-behold- 
ing sun, 


THE    CAPTURE.  109 

That  wrong  is  also  done  to  us  ;    and  they  are  slaves 

most  base, 
Whose  love  of  right  is  for  themselves,  and  not  for  all 

their  race. 

God  works  for  all.     Ye  cannot  hem  the  hope  of  being 

free 
With    parallels   of    latitude,    with    mountain-range    or 

sea. 
Put  golden  padlocks  on  Truth's  lips,  be  callous  as  ye 

will, 
From  soul  to  soul,  o'er  all  the  world,  leaps  one  electric 

thrill. 

Chain  down  your  slaves  with  ignorance,  ye  cannot  keep 

apart, 
With  all  your  craft  of  tyranny,  the  human  heart  from 

heart : 
When  first  the  Pilgrims  landed  on  the  Bay  State's  iron 

shore, 
The  word  went  forth  that  slavery  should  one  day  be  no 


110 


THE    CAPTURE. 


Out  from  the  land  of  bondage  't  is  decreed  our  slaves 

shall  go, 
And  signs  to  us  are  offered,  as  erst  to  Pharaoh ; 
If  we  are  blind,  their  exodus,  like  Israel's  of  yore, 
Through  a  Red  Sea  is  doomed  to  be,  whose  surges  are 

of  sore. 

b  ^ 

'T  is  ours  to  save  our  brethren,  with  peace  and  love  to 

win 
Their  darkened  hearts  from  error,  ere  they  harden  it  to 

sin; 
But  if  man  before  his  duty  with  a  listless  spirit  stands, 
Ere  long  the  Great  Avenger  takes  the  work  from  out 

his  hands. 


Ill 


ON  THE  DEATH  OF  CHARLES  T.  TORREY. 


Woe  worth  the  hour  when  it  is  crime 

To  plead  the  poor  dumb  bondman's  cause, 
When  all  that  makes  the  heart  sublime, 
The  glorious  throbs  that  conquer  time, 
Are  traitors  to  our  cruel  laws ! 

He  strove  among  God's  suffering  poor 
One  gleam  of  brotherhood  to  send ; 
The  dungeon  oped  its  hungry  door 
To  give  the  truth  one  martyr  more, 

Then  shut,  —  and  here  behold  the  end  ! 


112     ON  THE  DEATH  OF  CHARLES  T.  TORREY. 

O  Mother  State !  when  this  was  done, 
No  pitying  throe  thy  bosom  gave ; 

Silent  thou  saw'st  the  death-shroud  spun, 

And  now  thou  givest  to  thy  son 
The  stranger's  charity,  —  a  grave. 

Must  it  be  thus  for  ever  ?     No  ! 

The  hand  of  God  sows  not  in  vain  ; 
Long  sleeps  the  darkling  seed  below, 
The  seasons  come,  and  change,  and  go, 

And  all  the  fields  are  deep  with  grain. 

Although  our  brother  lie  asleep, 

Man's  heart  still  struggles,  still  aspires  ; 
His  grave  shall  quiver  yet,  while  deep 
Through  the  brave  Bay  State's  pulses  leap 
Her  ancient  energies  and  fires. 

When  hours  like  this  the  senses'  gush 

Have  stilled,  and  left  the  spirit  room, 
It  hears  amid  the  eternal  hush 
The  swooping  pinions'  dreadful  rush, 

That  bring  the  vengeance  and  the  doom  ; 


ON  THE  DEATH  CF  CHARLES  T.  TORKEY.      113 

Not  man's  brute  vengeance,  such  as  rends 

What  rivets  man  to  man  apart,  — 
God  doth  not  so  bring  round  his  ends, 
But  waits  the  ripened  time,  and  sends 

His  mercy  to  the  oppressor's  heart. 


1U 


REMEMBERED   MUSIC. 


A    FRAGMENT. 


THicK-rushing,  like  an  ocean  vast 

Of  bisons  the  far  prairie  shaking, 
The  notes  crowd  heavily  and  fast 
As  surfs,  one  plunging  while  the  last 
Draws  seaward  from  its  foamy  breakin* 

Or  in  low  murmurs  they  began, 

Rising  and  rising  momently, 
As  o'er  a  harp  iEolian 
A  fitful  breeze,  until  they  ran 

Up  to  a  sudden  ecstasy. 


REMEMBERED    MUSIC.  115 

And  then,  like  minute-drops  of  rain 

Ringing  in  water  silverly, 
They  lingering  dropped  and  dropped  again, 
Till  it  was  almost  like  a  pain 

To  listen  when  the  next  would  be. 
1840. 


116 


SONG  : 

To    M.   L. 

A  lily  thou  wast  when  I  saw  thee  first, 
A  lily-bud  not  opened  quite, 
That  hourly  grew  more  pure  and  white, 
By  morning,  and  noontide,  and  evening  nursed  : 
In  all  of  nature  thou  hadst  thy  share  ; 
Thou  wast  waited  on 
By  the  wind  and  sun ; 
The  rain  and  the  dew  for  thee  took  care  ; 
It  seemed  thou  never  couldst  be  more  fair. 

A  lily  thou  wast  when  I  saw  thee  first, 
A  lily-bud  ;  but,  O,  how  strange, 
How  full  of  wonder  was  the  change, 

When,  ripe  with  all  sweetness,  thy  full  bloom  burst ! 


song:    to  m.  l.  117 

How  did  the  tears  to  my  glad  eyes  start, 

When  the  woman-flower 

Reached  its  blossoming  hour, 
And  I  saw  the  warm  deeps  of  thy  golden  heart ! 

Glad  death  may  pluck  thee,  but  never  before 
The  gold  dust  of  thy  bloom  divine 
Hath  dropped  from  thy  heart  into  mine, 
To  quicken  its  faint  germs  of  heaven !y  lore  ; 
For  no  breeze  comes  nigh  thee  but  carries  away 
Some  impulses  bright 
Of  fragrance  and  light, 
Which  fall  upon  souls  that  are  lone  and  astray, 
To  plant  fruitful  hopes  of  the  flower  of  day. 


118 


TO  THE   DANDELION. 


Dear  common  flower,  that  grow'st  beside  the  way, 
Fringing  the  dusty  road  with  harmless  gold, 

First  pledge  of  blithesome  May, 
Which  children  pluck,  and,  full  of  pride,  uphold, 

High-hearted  buccaneers,  o'erjoyed  that  they 
An  Eldorado  in  the  grass  have  found, 

Which  not  the  rich  earth's  ample  round 
May  match  in  wealth, — thou  art  more  dear  to  me 
Than  all  the  prouder  summer-blooms  may  be. 

Gold  such  as  thine  ne'er  drew  the  Spanish  prow 
Through  the  primeval  hush  of  Indian  seas, 

Nor  wrinkled  the  lean  brow 
Of  age,  to  rob  the  lover's  heart  of  ease  ; 

'T  is  the  spring's  largess,  which  she  scatters  now 


TO    THE    DANDELION.  119 

To  rich  and  poor  alike,  with  lavish  hand, 
Though  most  hearts  never  understand 
To  take  it  at  God's  value,  but  pass  by 
The  offered  wealth  with  unrewarded  eye. 

Thou  art  my  tropics  and  mine  Italy ; 
To  look  at  thee  unlocks  a  warmer  clime ; 

The  eyes  thou  givest  me 
Are  in  the  heart,  and  heed  not  space  or  time : 

Not  in  mid  June  the  golden-cuirassed  bee 
Feels  a  more  summer-like,  warm  ravishment 
In  the  white  lily's  breezy  tent, 
His  conquered  Sybaris,  than  I,  when  first 
From  the  dark  green  thy  yellow  circles  burst. 

Then  think  I  of  deep  shadows  on  the  grass,  — 
Of  meadows  where  in  sun  the  cattle  graze, 

Where,  as  the  breezes  pass, 
The  gleaming  rushes  lean  a  thousand  ways,  — 

Of  leaves  that  slumber  in  a  cloudy  mass, 
Or  whiten  in  the  wind,  —  of  waters  blue 
That  from  the  distance  sparkle  through 


120  TO    THE    DANDELION. 

Some  woodland  gap,  —  and  of  a  sky  above, 
Where  one  white  cloud  like  a  stray  lamb  doth  move. 

My  childhood's  earliest  thoughts  are  linked  with  thee : 
The  sight  of  thee  calls  back  the  robin's  song, 

Who,  from  the  dark  old  tree 
Beside  the  door,  sang  clearly  all  day  long, 

And  I,  secure  in  childish  piety, 
Listened  as  if  I  heard  an  angel  sing 

With  news  from  heaven,  which  he  did  bring 
Fresh  every  day  to  my  untainted  ears, 
When  birds  and  flowers  and  I  were  happy  peers. 

How  like  a  prodigal  doth  nature  seem, 
When  thou,  for  all  thy  gold,  so  common  art ! 

Thou  teachest  me  to  deem 
More  sacredly  of  every  human  heart, 

Since  each  reflects  in  joy  its  scanty  gleam 
Of  heaven,  and  could  some  wondrous  secret  show, 
Did  we  but  pay  the  love  we  owe, 
And  with  a  child's  undoubting  wisdom  look 
On  all  these  living  pages  of  God's  book. 


121 


THE    GHOST-SEEK. 


Ye  who,  passing  graves  by  night, 
Glance  not  to  the  left  nor  right, 
Lest  a  spirit  should  arise, 
Cold  and  white,  to  freeze  your  eyes, 
Some  weak  phantom,  which  your  doubt 
Shapes  upon  the  dark  without 
From  the  dark  within,  a  guess 
At  the  spirit's  deathlessness, 
Which  ye  entertain  with  fear 
In  your  self-built  dungeon  here, 
Where  ye  sell  your  God-given  lives 
Just  for  gold  to  buy  you  gyves,  — 


122  THE    GHOST-SEER. 

Ye  without  a  shudder  meet, 
In  the  city's  noonday  street, 
Spirits  sadder  and  more  dread 
Than  from  out  the  clay  have  fled, 
Buried,  beyond  hope  of  light, 
In  the  body's  haunted  night ! 

See  ye  not  that  woman  pale  ? 
There  are  bloodhounds  on  her  trail ! 
Bloodhounds  two,  all  gaunt  and  lean. 
For  the  soul  their  scent  is  keen,  — 
Want  and  Sin,  and  Sin  is  last,  — 
They  have  followed  far  and  fast ; 
Want  gave  tongue,  and,  at  her  howl, 
Sin  awakened  with  a  growl. 
Ah,  poor  girl !  she  had  a  right 
To  a  blessing  from  the  light, 
Title-deeds  to  sky  and  earth 
God  gave  to  her  at  her  birth, 
But,  before  they  were  enjoyed, 
Poverty  had  made  them  void, 


THE    GHOST-SEER.  123 

And  had  drunk  the  sunshine  up 
From  all  nature's  ample  cup, 
Leaving  her  a  first-born's  share 
In  the  dregs  of  darkness  there. 
Often,  on  the  sidewalk  bleak, 
Hungry,  all  alone,  and  weak, 
She  has  seen,  in  night  and  storm, 
Rooms  o'erflow  with  firelight  warm, 
Which,  outside  the  window-glass, 
Doubled  all  the  cold,  alas ! 
Till  each  ray  that  on  her  fell 
Stabbed  her  like  an  icicle, 
And  she  almost  loved  the  wail 
Of  the  bloodhounds  on  her  trail. 
Till  the  floor  becomes  her  bier, 
She  shall  feel  their  pantings  near, 
Close  upon  her  very  heels, 
Spite  of  all  the  din  of  wheels  ; 
Shivering  on  her  pallet  poor, 
She  shall  hear  them  at  the  door 
Whine  and  scratch  to  be  let  in, 
Sister  bloodhounds,  Want  and  Sin ! 


124  THE    GHOST-SEER. 

Hark !  that  rustle  of  a  dress, 

Stiff  with  lavish  costliness ! 

Here  comes  one  whose  cheek  would  flush 

But  to  have  her  garment  brush 

'Gainst  the  girl  whose  fingers  thin 

Wove  the  weaiy  broidery  in, 

Bending  backward  from  her  toil, 

Lest  her  tears  the  silk  might  soil, 

And,  in  midnight's  chill  and  murk, 

Stitched  her  life  into  the  work, 

Shaping  from  her  bitter  thought 

Heart's-ease  and  forget-me-not, 

Satirizing  her  despair 

With  the  emblems  woven  there. 

Little  doth  the  wearer  heed 

Of  the  heart-break  in  the  brede ; 

A  hyena  by  her  side 

Skulks,  down-looking,  —  it  is  Pride. 

He  digs  for  her  in  the  earth, 

Where  lie  all  her  claims  of  birth, 


THE    GHOST-SEER.  .  125 

With  his  foul  paws  rooting  o'er 
Some  long-buried  ancestor, 
Who,  perhaps,  a  statue  won 
By  the  ill  deeds  he  had  done, 
By  the  innocent  blood  he  shed, 
By  the  desolation  spread 
Over  happy  villages, 
Blotting  out  the  smile  of  peace. 
Round  her  heart  and  round  her  brain 
Wealth  hath  linked  a  golden  chain, 
Which  doth  close  and  closer  press 
Heart  and  brain  to  narrowness. 
Every  morn  and  every  night 
She  must  bare  that  bosom  white, 
Which  so  thrillingly  doth  rise 
'Neath  its  proud  embroideries, 
That  its  mere  heave  lets  men  know 
How  much  whiter  't  is  than  snow,  — 
She  must  bare  it,  and,  unseen, 
Suckle  that  hyena  lean  ;  — 
Ah  !  the  fountain's  angel  shrinks, 
And  forsakes  it  while  he  drinks ! 


126  THE    GHOST-SEER. 

There  walks  Judas,  he  who  sold 
Yesterday  his  Lord  for  gold, 
Sold  God's  presence  in  his  heart 
For  a  proud  step  in  the  mart ; 
He  hath  dealt  in  flesh  and  blood,  — 
At  the  bank  his  name  is  good, 
At  the  bank,  and  only  there, 
'T  is  a  marketable  ware. 
In  his  eyes  that  stealthy  gleam 
Was  not  learned  of  sky  or  stream, 
But  it  has  the  cold,  hard  glint 
Of  new  dollars  from  the  mint. 
Open  now  your  spirit's  eyes, 
Look  through  that  poor  clay  disguise 
Which  has  thickened,  day  by  day, 
Till  it  keeps  all  light  at  bay, 
And  his  soul  in  pitchy  gloom 
Gropes  about  its  narrow  tomb, 
From  whose  dank  and  slimy  walls 
Drop  by  drop  the  horror  falls. 
Look  !  a  serpent  lank  and  cold 
Hugs  his  spirit  fold  on  fold  ; 


THE    GHOST-SEER. 

From  his  heart,  all  day  and  night, 
It  doth  suck  God's  blessed  light. 
Drink  it  will,  and  drink  it  must, 
Till  the  cup  holds  naught  but  dust ; 
All  day  long  he  hears  it  hiss, 
Writhing  in  its  fiendish  bliss  ; 
All  night  long  he  sees  its  eyes 
Flicker  with  foul  ecstasies, 
As  the  spirit  ebbs  away 
Into  the  absorbing  clay. 

Who  is  he  that  skulks,  afraid 
Of  the  trust  he  has  betrayed, 
Shuddering  if  perchance  a  gleam 
Of  old  nobleness  should  stream 
Through  the  pent,  unwholesome  room, 
Where  his  shrunk  soul  cowers  in  gloom, 
Spirit  sad  beyond  the  rest 
By  more  instinct  for  the  best  ? 
'T  is  a  poet  who  was  sent 
For  a  bad  world's  punishment, 


127 


128  THE    GHOST-SEER. 

By  compelling  it  to  see 

Golden  glimpses  of  To  Be, 

By  compelling  it  to  hear 

Songs  that  prove  the  angels  near  ; 

Who  was  sent  to  be  the  tongue 

Of  the  weak  and  spirit-wrung, 

Whence  the  fiery-winged  Despair 

In  men's  shrinking  eyes  might  flare. 

'T  is  our  hope  doth  fashion  us 

To  base  use  or  glorious : 

He  who  might  have  been  a  lark 

Of  Truth's  morning,  from  the  dark 

Raining  down  melodious  hope 

Of  a  freer,  broader  scope, 

Aspirations,  prophecies, 

Of  the  spirit's  full  sunrise, 

Chose  to  be  a  bird  of  night, 

Which,  with  eyes  refusing  light, 

Hooted  from  some  hollow  tree 

Of  the  world's  idolatry. 

'T  is  his  punishment  to  hear 

Flutterings  of  pinions  near, 


THE    GHOSTrSEER.  1*29 

And  his  own  vain  wings  to  feel 

Drooping  downward  to  his  heel, 

All  their  grace  and  import  lost, 

Burdening  his  weary  ghost : 

Ever  walking  by  his  side 

He  must  see  his  angel  guide, 

Who  at  intervals  doth  turn 

Looks  on  him  so  sadly  stern, 

With  such  ever-new  surprise 

Of  hushed  anguish  in  her  eyes, 

That  it  seems  the  light  of  day 

From  around  him  shrinks  away, 

Or  drops  blunted  from  the  wall 

Built  around  him  by  his  fall. 

Then  the  mountains,  whose  white  peaks 

Catch  the  morning's  earliest  streaks, 

He  must  see,  where  prophets  sit, 

Turning  east  their  faces  lit, 

Whence,  with  footsteps  beautiful, 

To  the  earth,  yet  dim  and  dull, 

They  the  gladsome  tidings  bring 

Of  the  sunlight's  hastening  : 


130  THE    GHOST-SEER. 

Never  can  those  hills  of  bliss 
Be  o'erclimbed  by  feet  like  his  ! 

But  enough  !     O,  do  not  dare 
From  the  next  the  veil  to  tear, 
Woven  of  station,  trade,  or  dress, 
More  obscene  than  nakedness, 
Wherewith  plausible  culture  drapes 
Fallen  Nature's  myriad  shapes  ! 
Let  us  rather  love  to  mark 
How  the  unextinguished  spark 
Will  shine  through  the  thin  disguise 
Of  our  customs,  pomps,  and  lies, 
And,  not  seldom  blown  to  flame, 
Vindicate  its  ancient  claim. 


131 


THE   MORNING-GLORY. 


We  wreathed  about  our  darling's  head  the  morning-glory 

bright ; 
Her  little  face  looked  out  beneath,  so  full  of  life  and 

light, 
So  lit  as  with  a  sunrise,  that  we  could  only  say, 
She  is  the  morning-glory  true,  and  her  poor  types  are 

they. 

So  always  from  that  happy  time  we  called  her  by  their 

name, 
And  very  fitting  did  it  seem,  for,  sure  as  morning  came 


132 


THE    MORNING-GLORY. 


Behind  her  cradle-bars  she  smiled  to  catch  the  first  faint 

ray, 
As  from  the  trellis  smiles  the  flower  and  opens  to  the 

day. 

But   not    so    beautiful    they   rear  their  airy   cups   of 

blue, 
As  turned  her  sweet  eyes  to  the  light  brimmed  with 

sleep's  tender  dew ; 
And  not  so  close  their  tendrils  fine  round  their  supports 

are  thrown, 
As  those  dear  arms  whose  outstretched  plea  clasped  all 

hearts  to  her  own. 

We  used  to  think  how  she  had  come,  even  as  comes  the 

flower, 
The  last  and  perfect  added  gift  to  crown  love's  morning 

hour, 
And  how  in  her  was  imaged  forth  the  love  we  could  not 

say, 
As  on  the  little  dew-drops  round  shines  back  the  heart 

of  day. 


THE    MORNING-GLORY. 


133 


We  never  could  have  thought,  O  God,  that  she  must 

wither  up, 
Almost  before  a  day  was  flown,  like  the  morning-glory's 

cup; 
We  never  thought  to  see  her  droop  her  fair  and  noble 

head, 
Till  she  lay  stretched  before  our  eyes,  wilted,  and  cold, 

and  dead. 

The  morning-glory's  blossoming  will  soon  be  coming 

round, 
We  see  their  rows  of  heart-shaped  leaves  upspringing 

from  the  ground  ; 
The  tender  things  the  winter  killed  renew  again  their 

birth, 
But  the  glory  of  our  morning  has  passed  away  from 

earth. 

O  Earth,  in  vain  our  aching  eyes  stretch  over  thy  green 

plain ! 
Too  harsh  thy  dews,  too  gross  thine  air,  her  spirit  to 

sustain,  — 


134  THE    MORNING-GLORY. 

But   up   in   groves   of    Paradise   full    surely   we   shall 

see 
Our  morning-glory  beautiful  twine  round  our  dear  Lord's 

knee. 


135 


STUDIES   FOR   TWO  HEADS. 


Some  sort  of  heart  I  know  is  hers, — 
I  chanced  to  feel  her  pulse  one  night ; 

A  brain  she  has  that  never  errs, 
And  yet  is  never  nobly  right ; 

It  does  not  leap  to  great  results, 
But,  in  some  corner  out  of  sight, 
Suspects  a  spot  of  latent  blight, 
And,  o'er  the  impatient  infinite, 

She  bargains,  haggles,  and  consults. 


136  STUDIES    FOR    TWO    HEADS. 

Her  eye,  —  it  seems  a  chemic  test, 

And  drops  upon  you  like  an  acid  ; 
It  bites  you  with  unconscious  zest, 

So  clear  and  bright,  so  coldly  placid  ; 
It  holds  you  quietly  aloof, 

It  holds,  —  and  yet  it  does  not  win  you 
It  merely  puts  you  to  the  proof 

And  sorts  what  qualities  are  in  you  ; 
It  smiles,  but  never  brings  3'ou  nearer, 

It  lights,  —  her  nature  draws  not  nigh  ; 
'T  is  but  that  yours  is  growing  clearer 

To  her  assays  ;  —  yes,  try  and  try, 

You  '11  get  no  deeper  than  her  eye. 

There,  you  are  classified  :  she  's  gone 

Far,  far  away  into  herself ; 
Each  with  its  Latin  label  on, 
Your  poor  components,  one  by  one, 
Are  laid  upon  their  proper  shelf 
In  her  compact  and  ordered  mind, 
And  what  of  you  is  left  behind 
Is  no  more  to  her  than  the  wind  ; 


STUDIES    FOR    TWO    HEADS.  137 

In  that  clear  brain,  which,  day  and  night, 
No  movement  of  the  heart  e'er  jostles, 

Her  friends  are  ranged  on  left  and  right,  — 

Here,  silex,  hornblende,  sienite, 
There,  animal  remains  and  fossils. 

And  yet,  O  subtile  analyst, 

That  canst  each  property  detect 
Of  mood  or  grain,  that  canst  untwist 

Each  tangled  skein  of  intellect, 
And  with  thy  scalpel  eyes  lay  bare 
Each  mental  nerve  more  fine  than  air,  — 

O  brain  exact,  that  in  thy  scales 
Canst  weigh  the  sun  and  never  err, 

For  once  thy  patient  science  fails, 

One  problem  still  defies  thy  art ;  — - 
Thou  never  canst  compute  for  her 
The  distance  and  diameter 

Of  any  simple  human  heart. 


138  STUDIES  FOR  TWO  HEADS. 


II. 


Hear  him  but  speak,  and  you  will  feel 
The  shadows  of  the  Portico 

Over  your  tranquil  spirit  steal, 
To  modulate  all  joy  and  woe 
To  one  subdued,  subduing  glow  ; 

Above  our  squabbling  business-hours, 

Like  Phidian  Jove's,  his  beauty  lowers, 

His  nature  satirizes  ours  ; 

A  form  and  front  of  Attic  grace, 

He  shames  the  higgling  market-place, 

And  dwarfs  our  more  mechanic  powers. 

What  throbbing  verse  can  fitly  render 
That  face,  —  so  pure,  so  trembling-tender  ? 

Sensation  glimmers  through  its  rest, 
It  speaks  unmanacled  by  words, 

As  full  of  motion  as  a  nest 
That  palpitates  with  unfledged  birds  ; 

'T  is  likest  to  Bethesda's  stream, 
Forewarned  through  all  its  thrilling  springs, 


STUDIES    FOR    TWO    HEADS.  139 

White  with  the  angel's  coming  gleam, 
And  rippled  with  his  fanning  wings. 

Hear  him  unfold  his  plots  and  plans, 
And  larger  destinies  seem  man's  ; 

You  conjure  from  his  glowing  face 

The  omen  of  a  fairer  race  ; 
With  one  grand  trope  he  boldly  spans 
The  gulf  wherein  so  many  fall, 
'Twixt  possible  and  actual ; 
His  first  swift  word,  talaria-shod, 
Exuberant  with  conscious  God, 
Out  of  the  choir  of  planets  blots 
The  present  earth  with  all  its  spots. 

Himself  unshaken  as  the  sky, 

His  words,  like  whirlwinds,  spin  on  high 

Systems  and  creeds  pellmell  together  ; 
'T  is  strange  as  to  a  deaf  man's  eye, 
While  trees  uprooted  splinter  by, 

The  dumb  turmoil  of  stormy  weather  ; 

Less  of  iconoclast  than  shaper, 


140  STUDIES    FOR    TWO    HEADS. 

His  spirit,  safe  behind  the  reach 
Of  the  tornado  of  his  speech, 

Burns  calmly  as  a  glowworm's  taper. 

So  great  in  speech,  but,  ah !   in  act 

So  overrun  with  vermin  troubles, 
The  coarse,  sharp-cornered,  ugly  fact 

Of  life  collapses  all  his  bubbles  : 
Had  he  but  lived  in  Plato's  day, 

He  might,  unless  my  fancy  errs, 
Have  shared  that  golden  voice's  sway 

O'er  barefooted  philosophers. 
Our  nipping  climate  hardly  suits 
The  ripening  of  ideal  fruits  ; 
His  theories  vanquish  us  all  summer, 
But  winter  makes  him  dumb  and  dumber ; 
To  see  him  'mid  life's  needful  things 

Is  something  painfully  bewildering ; 
He  seems  an  angel  with  dipt  wings 

Tied  to  a  mortal  wife  and  children, 
And  by  a  brother  seraph  taken 
In  the  act  of  eating  eggs  and  bacon. 


STUDIES  FOR  TWO  HEADS.  141 

Like  a  clear  fountain,  his  desire 

Exults  and  leaps  toward  the  light, 
In  every  drop  it  says  "  Aspire  !  " 

Striving  for  more  ideal  height ; 
And  as  the  fountain,  falling  thence, 

Crawls  baffled  through  the  common  gutter, 
So,  from  his  speech's  eminence, 
He  shrinks  into  the  present  tense, 

Unkinged  by  foolish  bread  and  butter. 

Yet  smile  not,  worldling,  for  in  deeds 

Not  all  of  life  that 's  brave  and  wise  is ; 
He  strews  an  ampler  future's  seeds, 

'T  is  your  fault  if  no  harvest  rises  ; 
Smooth  back  the  sneer  ;  for  is  it  naught 

That  all  he  is  and  has  is  Beauty's  ? 
By  soul  the  soul's  gains  must  be  wrought, 
The  Actual  claims  our  coarser  thought, 

The  Ideal  hath  its  higher  duties. 


142 


ON   A   PORTRAIT   OF   DANTE   BY   GIOTTO. 


Can  this  be  thou  who,  lean  and  pale, 

With  such  immitigable  eye 
Didst  look  upon  those  writhing  souls  in  bale, 

And  note  each  vengeance,  and  pass  by- 
Unmoved,  save  when  thy  heart  by  chance 
Cast  backward  one  forbidden  glance, 

And  saw  Francesca,  with  child's  glee, 

Subdue  and  mount  thy  wild-horse  knee 
And  with  proud  hands  control  its  fiery  prance 


ON    A    PORTRAIT    OF    DANTE    BY    GIOTTO.  143 

With  half-drooped  lids,  and  smooth,  round  brow, 

And  eye  remote,  that  inly  sees 
Fair  Beatrice's  spirit  wandering  now 

In  some  sea-lulled  Hesperides, 
Thou  movest  through  the  jarring  street, 
Secluded  from  the  noise  of  feet 

By  her  gift-blossom  in  thy  hand, 

Thy  branch  of  palm  from  Holy  Land  ;  — 
No  trace  is  here  of  ruin's  fiery  sleet. 

Yet  there  is  something  round  thy  lips 
That  prophecies  the  coming  doom, 

The  soft,  gray  herald-shadow  ere  the  eclipse 
Notches  the  perfect  disk  with  gloom  ; 

A  something  that  would  banish  thee, 

And  thine  untamed  pursuer  be, 

From  men  and  their  unworthy  fates, 
Though  Florence  had  not  shut  her  gates, 

And  grief  had  loosed  her  clutch  and  let  thee  free. 

Ah  !  he  who  follows  fearlessly 
The  beckonings  of  a  poet-heart 


144  ON    A    PORTRAIT    OF    DANTE    BY    GIOTTO. 

Shall  wander,  and  without  the  world's  decree, 
A  banished  man  in  field  and  mart ; 

Harder  than  Florence1  walls  the  bar 

Which  with  deaf  sternness  holds  him  far 
From  home  and  friends,  till  death's  release, 
And  makes  his  only  prayer  for  peace, 

Like  thine,  scarred  veteran  of  a  lifelong  war ! 


145 


ON  THE  DEATH  OF  A  FRIEND'S  CHILD. 


Deatii  never  came  so  nigh  to  me  before, 
Nor  showed  me  his  mild  face :  oft  had  I  mused 
Of  calm  and  peace  and  deep  forgetfulness, 
Of  folded  hands,  closed  eyes,  and  heart  at  rest, 
And  slumber  sound  beneath  a  flowery  turf, 
Of  faults  forgotten,  and  an  inner  place 
Kept  sacred  for  us  in  the  heart  of  friends ; 
But  these  were  idle  fancies,  satisfied 
With  the  mere  husk  of  this  great  mystery, 
And  dwelling  in  the  outward  shows  of  things. 
Heaven  is  not  mounted  to  on  wings  of  dreams, 
Nor  doth  the  unthankful  happiness  of  youth 
Aim  thitherward,  but  floats  from  bloom  to  bloom, 
With  earth's  warm  patch  of  sunshine  well  content 
10 


146  ON    THE    DEATH    OF    A    FRIEND'S    CHILD. 

'T  is  sorrow  builds  the  shining  ladder  up, 
Whose  golden  rounds  are  our  calamities, 
Whereon  our  firm  feet  planting,  nearer  God 
The  spirit  climbs,  and  hath  its  eyes  unsealed. 

True  is  it  that  Death's  face  seems  stern  and  cold, 

When  he  is  sent  to  summon  those  we  love, 

But  all  God's  angels  come  to  us  disguised ; 

Sorrow  and  sickness,  poveity  and  death, 

One  after  other  lift  their  frowning  masks, 

And  we  behold  the  seraph's  face  beneath, 

All  radiant  with  the  glory  and  the  calm 

Of  having  looked  upon  the  front  of  God. 

With  every  anguish  of  our  earthly  part 

The  spirit's  sight  grows  clearer ;  this  was  meant 

When  Jesus  touched  the  blind  man's  lids  with  clay. 

Life  is  the  jailer,  Death  the  angel  sent 

To  draw  the  unwilling  bolts  and  set  us  free. 

He  flings  not  ope  the  ivory  gate  of  Rest,  — 

Only  the  fallen  spirit  knocks  at  that,  — 

But  to  benigner  regions  beckons  us, 

To  destinies  of  more  rewarded  toil. 


ON    THE    DEATH    OF    A    FRIEND'S    CHILD.  147 

In  the  hushed  chamber,  sitting  by  the  dead, 

It  grates  on  us  to  hear  the  flood  of  life 

Whirl  rustling  onward,  senseless  of  our  loss. 

The  bee  hums  on ;  around  the  blossomed  vine 

Whirs  the  light  humming-bird ;  the  cricket  chirps  ; 

The  locust's  shrill  alarum  stings  the  ear ; 

Hard  by,  the  cock  shouts  lustily ;  from  farm  to  farm, 

His  cheery  brothers,  telling  of  the  sun, 

Answer,  till  far  away  the  joyance  dies  : 

We  never  knew  before  how  God  had  filled 

The  summer  air  with  happy  living  sounds ; 

All  round  us  seems  an  overplus  of  life, 

And  yet  the  one  dear  heart  lies  cold  and  still. 

It  is  most  strange,  when  the  great  miracle 

Hath  for  our  sakes  been  done,  when  we  have  had 

Our  inwardest  experience  of  God, 

When  with  his  presence  still  the  room  expands, 

And  is  awed  after  him,  that  naught  is  changed, 

That  Nature's  face  looks  unacknowledging, 

And  the  mad  world  still  dances  heedless  on 

After  its  butterflies,  and  gives  no  sign. 

'T  is  hard  at  first  to  see  it  all  aright ; 


In  vain  Faith  blows  her  trump  to  summon  back 
Her  scattered  troop  ;  yet,  through  the  clouded  glass 
Of  our  own  bitter  tears,  we  learn  to  look 
Undazzled  on  the  kindness  of  God's  face  ; 
Earth  is  too  dark,  and  Heaven  alone  shines  through. 

It  is  no  little  thing,  when  a  fresh  soul 

And  a  fresh  heart,  with  their  unmeasured  scope 

For  good,  not  gravitating  earthward  yet, 

But  circling  in  diviner  periods, 

Are  sent  into  the  world,  —  no  little  thing, 

When  this  unbounded  possibility 

Into  the  outer  silence  is  withdrawn. 

Ah,  in  this  world,  where  every  guiding  thread 

Ends  suddenly  in  the  one  sure  centre,  death, 

The  visionary  hand  of  Might-have-been 

Alone  can  fill  Desire's  cup  to  the  brim ! 

How  changed,  dear  friend,  are  thy  part  and  thy 

child's! 
He  bends  above  thy  cradle  now,  or  holds 
His  warning  finger  out  to  be  thy  guide  ; 


Thou  art  the  nursling  now  ;  he  watches  thee 
Slow  learning,  one  by  one,  the  secret  things 
Which  are  to  him  used  sights  of  every  day ; 
He  smiles  to  see  thy  wondering  glances  con 
The  grass  and  pebbles  of  the  spirit-world, 
To  thee  miraculous  ;  and  he  will  teach 
Thy  knees  their  due  observances  of  prayer. 

Children  are  God's  apostles,  day  by  day 
Sent  forth  to  preach  of  love,  and  hope,  and  peace 
Nor  hath  thy  babe  his  mission  left  undone. 
To  me,  at  least,  his  going  hence  hath  given 
Serener  thoughts  and  nearer  to  the  skies, 
And  opened  a  new  fountain  in  my  heart 
For  thee,  my  friend,  and  all :  and,  O,  if  Death 
More  near  approaches  meditates,  and  clasps 
Even  now  some  dearer,  more  reluctant  hand, 
God,  strengthen  thou  my  faith,  that  I  may  see 
That  't  is  thine  angel,  who,  with  loving  haste, 
Unto  the  service  of  the  inner  shrine 
Doth  waken  thy  beloved  with  a  kiss  ! 
1844. 


150 


EURYDICE. 


Heaven's  cup  held  down  to  me  I  drain, 
The  sunshine  mounts  and  spurs  my  brain  ; 
Bathing  in  grass,  with  thirsty  eye 
I  suck  the  last  drop  of  the  sky  ; 
With  each  hot  sense  I  draw  to  the  lees 
The  quickening  out-door  influences, 
And  empty  to  each  radiant  comer 
A  supernaculum  of  summer  : 
Not,  Bacchus,  all  thy  grosser  juice 
Could  bring  enchantment  so  profuse, 
Though  for  its  press  each  grape-bunch  had 
The  white  feet  of  an  Oread. 


ETJRYDICE.  151 

Through  our  coarse  art  gleam,  now  and  then, 
The  features  of  angelic  men  ; 
'Neath  the  lewd  Satyr's  veiling  paint 
Glows  forth  the  Sibyl,  Muse,  or  Saint ; 
The  dauber's  botch  no  more  obscures 
The  mighty  Master's  portraitures. 
And  who  can  say  what  luckier  beam 
The  hidden  glory  shall  redeem, 
For  what  chance  clod  the  soul  may  wait 
To  stumble  on  its  nobler  fate, 
Or  why,  to  his  unwarned  abode, 
Still  by  surprises  comes  the  God  ? 
Some  moment,  nailed  on  sorrow's  cross, 
May  mediate  a  whole  youth's  loss, 
Some  windfall  joy,  we  know  not  whence, 
Redeem  a  lifetime's  rash  expense, 
And,  suddenly  wise,  the  soul  may  mark, 
Stripped  of  their  simulated  dark, 
Mountains  of  gold  that  pierce  the  sky, 
Girdling  its  valleyed  poverty. 

I  feel  ye,  childhood's  hopes,  return, 
With  olden  heats  my  pulses  burn,  — 


152  EURYDICE. 

Mine  be  the  self- forgetting  sweep, 
The  torrent  impulse  swift  and  wild, 
Wherewith  Taghkanic's  rockborn  child 
Dares  gloriously  the  dangerous  leap, 
And,  in  his  sky-descended  mood, 
Transmutes  each  drop  of  sluggish  blood, 
By  touch  of  bravery's  simple  wand, 
To  amethyst  and  diamond, 
Proving  himself  no  bastard  slip, 
But  the  true  granite-cradled  one, 
Nursed  with  the  rock's  primeval  drip, 
The  cloud-embracing  mountain's  son  ! 

Prayer  breathed  in  vain  !  no  wish's  sway 
Rebuilds  the  vanished  yesterday  ; 
For  plated  wares  of  Sheffield  stamp 
We  gave  the  old  Aladdin's  lamp  ; 
'T  is  we  are  changed  ;  ah,  whither  went 
That  undesigned  abandonment, 
That  wise,  unquestioning  content, 
Which  could  erect  its  microcosm 
Out  of  a  weed's  neglected  blossom, 


EURYDICE.  153 

Could  call  up  Arthur  and  his  peers 

By  some  low  moss's  clump  of  spears, 

Or,  in  its  shingle  trireme  launched, 

Where  Charles  in  some  green  inlet  branched, 

Could  venture  for  the  golden  fleece 

And  dragon-watched  Hesperides, 

Or,  from  its  ripple-shattered  fate, 

Ulysses'  chances  recreate  ? 

When,  heralding  life's  every  phase, 

There  glowed  a  goddess-veiling  haze, 

A  plenteous,  forewarning  grace, 

Like  that  more  tender  dawn  that  flies  , 

Before  the  full  moon's  ample  rise  ? 

Methinks  thy  parting  glory  shines 

Through  yonder  grove  of  singing  pines  ; 

At  that  elm-vista's  end  I  trace 

Dimly  thy  sad  leave-taking  face, 

Eurydice  !     Eurydice  ! 

The  tremulous  leaves  repeat  to  me 

Eurydice  !     Eurydice  ! 

No  gloomier  Orcus  swallows  thee 

Than  the  unclouded  sunset's  glow  ; 

Thine  is  at  least  Elysian  woe  ; 


154  EURYDICE. 

Thou  hast  Good's  natural  decay, 
And  fadest  like  a  star  away 
Into  an  atmosphere  whose  shine 
With  fuller  day  o'ermasters  thine, 
Entering  defeat  as  't  were  a  shrine  ; 
For  us,  —  we  turn  life's  diary  o'er 
To  find  but  one  word,  —  Nevermore. 


155 


SHE    CAME    AND    WENT. 


As  a  twig  trembles,  which  a  bird 

Lights  on  to  sing,  then  leaves  unbent, 

So  is  my  memory  thrilled  and  stirred  ;  — 
I  only  know  she  came  and  went. 

As  clasps  some  lake,  by  gusts  unriven, 
The  blue  dome's  measureless  content, 

So  my  soul  held  that  moment's  heaven ;  - 
I  only  know  she  came  and  went. 

As,  at  one  bound,  our  swift  spring  heaps 
The  orchards  full  of  bloom  and  scent, 

So  clove  her  May  my  wintry  sleeps ;  — 
I  only  know  she  came  and  went. 


156  SHE    CAME    AND    WENT. 

An  angel  stood  and  met  my  gaze, 
Through  the  low  doorway  of  my  tent 

The  tent  is  struck,  the  vision  stays  ;  — 
I  only  know  she  came  and  went. 

O,  when  the  room  grows  slowly  dim^ 
And  life's  last  oil  is  nearly  spent, 

One  gush  of  light  these  eyes  will  brim, 
Only  to  think  she  came  and  went. 


157 


TO  W.  L.  GARRISON. 


"  Sometime  afterward,  it  was  reported  to  me  by  the  city  officers, 
that  they  had  ferreted  out  the  paper  and  its  editor :  that  his  office 
was  an  obscure  hole,  his  only  visible  auxiliary  a  negro  boy,  and 
his  supporters  a  few  very  insignificant  persons  of  all  colors." —  77. 
G.  Otis's  Letter. 


In  a  small  chamber,  friendless  and  unseen, 

Toiled  o'er  his  types  one  poor,  unlearned  young  man ; 

The  place  was  dark,  unfurnitured,  and  mean  ;  — 
Yet  there  the  freedom  of  a  race  began. 

Help  came  but  slowly  ;  surely  no  man  yet 

Put  lever  to  the  heavy  world  with  less  : 
What  need  of  help  ?     He  knew  how  types  were  set, 

He  had  a  dauntless  spirit,  and  a  press. 


158  TO    W.    L.    GARRISON. 

Such  earnest  natures  are  the  fiery  pith, 

The  compact  nucleus,  round  which  systems  grow  ; 

Mass  after  mass  becomes  inspired  therewith, 
And  whirls  impregnate  with  the  central  glow. 

O  Truth !  O  Freedom  !  how  are  ye  still  born 
In  the  rude  stable,  in  the  manger  nursed  ! 

What  humble  hands  unbar  those  gates  of  morn 

Through  which  the  splendors  of  the  New  Day  burst ! 

What !  shall  one  monk,  scarce  known  beyond  his  cell, 
Front  Rome's  far-reaching  bolts,  and  scorn  her  frown  I 

Brave  Luther  answered  Yes  ;  that  thunder's  swell 
Rocked  Europe,  and  discharmed  the  triple  crown. 

Whatever  can  be  known  of  earth  we  know, 

Sneered  Europe's  wise  men,  in  their  snail-shells  curled  ; 

No,  said  one  man  in  Genoa,  and  that  no 
Out  of  the  dark  created  this  New  World. 

Who  is  it  will  not  dare  himself  to  trust  ? 
Who  is  it  hath  not  strength  to  stand  alone  ? 


TO    W.    L.    GARRISON. 


159 


Who  is  it  thwarts  and  bilks  the  inward  must  ? 

He  and  his  works,  like  sand,  from  earth  are  blown. 

Men  of  a  thousand  shifts  and  wiles,  look  here  ! 

See  one  straightforward  conscience  put  in  pawn 
To  win  a  world  ;  see  the  obedient  sphere 

By  bravery's  simple  gravitation  drawn  ! 

Shall  we  not  heed  the  lesson  taught  of  old, 
And  by  the  Present's  lips  repeated  still, 

In  our  own  single  manhood  to  be  bold, 

Fortressed  in  conscience  and  impregnable  will  ? 

We  stride  the  river  daily  at  its  spring, 

Nor,  in  our  childish  thoughtlessness,  foresee 

What  myriad  vassal  streams  shall  tribute  bring, 
How  like  an  equal  it  shall  greet  the  sea. 

O  small  beginnings,  ye  are  great  and  strong, 
Based  on  a  faithful  heart  and  weariless  brain ! 

Ye  build  the  future  fair,  ye  conquer  wrong, 
Ye  earn  the  crown,  and  wear  it  not  in  vain. 


160 


THE   CHANGELING. 


I  had  a  little  daughter, 

And  she  was  given  to  me 
To  lead  me  gently  backward 

To  the  Heavenly  Father's  knee, 
That  I,  by  the  force  of  nature, 

Might  in  some  dim  wise  divine 
The  depth  of  his  infinite  patience 

To  this  wayward  soul  of  mine. 


I  know  not  how  others  saw  her, 
But  to  me  she  was  wholly  fair, 

And  the  light  of  the  heaven  she  came  from 
Still  lingered  and  gleamed  in  her  hair ; 


THE    CHANGELING.  161 

For  it  was  as  wavy  and  golden, 

And  as  many  changes  took, 
As  the  shadows  of  sun-gilt  ripples 

On  the  yellow  bed  of  a  brook. 

To  what  can  I  liken  her  smiling 

Upon  me,  her  kneeling  lover, 
How  it  leaped  from  her  lips  to  her  eyelids, 

And  dimpled  her  wholly  over, 
Till  her  outstretched  hands  smiled  also, 

And  I  almost  seemed  to  see 
The  very  heart  of  her  mother 

Sending  sun  through  her  veins  to  me  ! 

She  had  been  with  us  scarce  a  twelvemonth, 

And  it  hardly  seemed  a  day, 
When  a  troop  of  wandering  angels 

Stole  my  little  daughter  away ; 
Or  perhaps  those  heavenly  Zincali 

But  loosed  the  hampering  strings, 
Aid  when  they  had  opened  her  cage-door, 

My  little  bird  used  her  wings. 


162  THE    CHANGELING. 

But  they  left  in  her  stead  a  changeling, 

A  little  angel  child, 
That  seems  like  her  bud  in  full  blossom, 

And  smiles  as  she  never  smiled  : 
When  I  wake  in  the  morning,  I  see  it 

Where  she  always  used  to  lie, 
And  I  feel  as  weak  as  a  violet 

Alone  'neath  the  awful  sky ; 

As  weak,  yet  as  trustful  also  ; 

For  the  whole  year  long  I  see 
All  the  wonders  of  faithful  Nature 

Still  worked  for  the  love  of  me  ; 
Winds  wander,  and  dews  drip  earthward, 

Rain  falls,  suns  rise  and  set, 
Earth  whirls,  and  all  but  to  prosper 

A  poor  little  violet. 

This  child  is  not  mine  as  the  first  was, 

I  cannot  sing  it  to  rest, 
I  cannot  lift  it  up  fatherly 

And  bliss  it  upon  my  breast ; 


THE    CHANGELING.  163 

Yet  it  lies  in  my  little  one's  cradle 

And  sits  in  my  little  one's  chair, 
And  the  light  of  the  heaven  she  's  gone  to 

Transfigures  its  golden  hair. 


164 


AN  INDIAN-SUMMER  REVERIE. 


What  visionary  tints  the  year  puts  on, 
When  falling  leaves  falter  through  motionless  air 

Or  numbly  cling  and  shiver  to  be  gone ! 
How  shimmer  the  low  flats  and  pastures  bare, 
As  with  her  nectar  Hebe  Autumn  fills 
The  bowl  between  me  and  those  distant  hills, 
And  smiles  and  shakes  abroad  her  misty,  tremulous  hair ! 

No  more  the  landscape  holds  its  wealth  apart, 
Making  me  poorer  in  my  poverty, 

But  mingles  with  my  senses  and  my  heart ; 
My  own  projected  spirit  seems  to  me 


AN    INDIAN-SUMMER    REVERIE.  165 

In  her  own  reverie  the  world  to  steep ; 
'T  is  she  that  waves  to  sympathetic  sleep, 
Moving,  as  she  is  moved,  each  field  and  hill  and  tree. 

How  fuse  and  mix,  with  what  unfelt  degrees, 
Clasped  by  the  faint  horizon's  languid  arms, 

Each  into  each,  the  hazy  distances ! 
The  softened  season  all  the  landscape  charms ; 

Those  hills,  my  native  village  that  embay, 

In  waves  of  dreamier  purple  roll  away, 
And  floating  in  mirage  seem  all  the  glimmering  farms. 

Far  distant  sounds  the  hidden  chickadee 
Close  at  my  side  ;  far  distant  sound  the  leaves  ; 

The  fields  seem  fields  of  dream,  where  Memory 
Wanders  like  gleaning  Ruth  ;  and  as  the  sheaves 
Of  wheat  and  barley  wavered  in  the  eye 
Of  Boaz  as  the  maiden's  glow  went  by, 
So  tremble  and  seem  remote  all  things  the  sense  re- 
ceives. 

The  cock's  shrill  trump,  that  tells  of  scattered  corn, 
Passed  breezily  on  by  all  his  flapping  mates, 


166  AN    INDIAN-SUMMER    REVERIE. 

Faint  and  more  faint,  from  barn  to  barn  is  borne, 
Southward,  perhaps  to  far  Magellan's  Straits ; 
Dimly  I  catch  the  throb  of  distant  flails ; 
Silently  overhead  the  henhawk  sails, 
With  watchful,  measuring  eye,  and  for  his  quarry  waits. 

The  sobered  robin,  hunger-silent  now, 
Seeks  cedar-berries  blue,  his  autumn  cheer  ; 

The  squirrel,  on  the  shingly  shagbark's  bough, 
Now  saws,  now  lists  with  downward  eye  and  ear, 
Then  drops  his  nut,  and,  with  a  chipping  bound, 
Whisks  to  his  winding  fastness  underground  ; 
The  clouds  like  swans  drift  down  the  streaming  atmos- 
phere. 

O'er  yon  bare  knoll  the  pointed  cedar-shadows 
Drowse  on  the  crisp,  gray  moss  ;  the  ploughman's  call 
Creeps  faint  as  smoke  from  black,  fresh-furrowed 
meadows  ; 
The  single  crow  a  single  caw  lets  fall ; 
And  all  around  me  every  bush  and  tree 
Says  Autumn  's  here,  and  Winter  soon  will  be, 
Who  snows  his  soft,  white  sleep  and  silence  over  all. 


AN    INDIAN-SUMMER    REVERIE.  167 

The  birch,  most  shy  and  lady-like  of  trees, 
Her  poverty,  as  best  she  may,  retrieves, 

And  hints  at  her  foregone  gentilities 
With  some  saved  relics  of  her  wealth  of  leaves ; 

The  swamp-oak,  with  his  royal  purple  on, 

Glares  red  as  blood  across  the  sinking  sun, 
As  one  who  proudlier  to  a  falling  fortune  cleaves. 

He  looks  a  sachem,  in  red  blanket  wrapt, 
Who,  'mid  some  council  of  the  sad-garbed  whites, 

Erect  and  stern,  in  his  own  memories  lapt, 
With  distant  eye  broods  over  other  sights, 

Sees  the  hushed  wood  the  city's  flare  replace, 

The  wounded  turf  heal  o'er  the  railway's  trace, 
And  roams  the  savage  Past  of  his  undwindled  rights. 

The  red-oak,  softer-grained,  yields  all  for  lost, 
And,  with  his  crumpled  foliage  stiff  and  dry, 

After  the  first  betrayal  of  the  frost, 
Rebuffs  the  kiss  of  the  relenting  sky ; 

The  chestnuts,  lavish  of  their  long-hid  gold, 

To  the  faint  Summer,  beggared  now  and  old, 
Pour  back  the  sunshine  hoarded  'neath  her  favoring  eye. 


168  AN    INDIAN-SUMMER    REVERIE. 

The  ash  her  purple  drops  forgivingly 
And  sadly,  breaking  not  the  general  hush ; 

The  maple-swamps  glow  like  a  sunset  sea, 
Each  leaf  a  ripple  with  its  separate  flush  ; 

All   round   the    wood's   edge   creeps   the   skirting 

blaze 
Of  bushes  low,  as  when,  on  cloudy  days, 
Ere  the  rain  falls,  the  cautious  farmer  burns  his  brush. 

O'er  yon  low  wall,  which  guards  one  unkempt  zone, 
Where  vines  and  weeds  and  scrub-oaks  intertwine 

Safe  from  the  plough,  whose  rough,  discordant  stone 
Is  massed  to  one  soft  gray  by  lichens  fine, 

The   tangled   blackberry,   crossed   and   recrossed, 

weaves 
A  prickly  network  of  ensanguined  leaves  ; 
Hard  by,  with  coral  beads,  the  prim  black-alders  shine. 

Pillaring  with  flame  this  crumbling  boundary, 
Whose  loose   blocks  topple  'neath   the    ploughboy's 
foot, 

Who,  with  each  sense  shut  fast  except  the  eye, 
Creeps  close  and  scares  the  jay  he  hoped  to  shoot, 


AN    INDIAN-SUMMER    REVERIE.  169 

The  woodbine  up  the  elm's  straight  stem  aspires, 
Coiling  it,  harmless,  with  autumnal  fires  ; 
In  the  ivy's  paler  blaze  the  martyr  oak  stands  mute. 

Below,  the  Charles  —  a  stripe  of  nether  sky, 
Now  hid  by  rounded  apple-trees  between, 

Whose   gaps  the   misplaced   sail   sweeps  bellying 

by, 

Now  flickering  golden  through  a  woodland  screen, 
Then  spreading  out,  at  his  next  turn  beyond, 
A  silver  circle,  like  an  inland  pond  — 
Slips    seaward    silently   through    marshes   purple   and 
green. 

Dear  marshes  !  vain  to  him  the  gift  of  sight 
Who  cannot  in  their  various  incomes  share, 

From  every  season  drawn,  of  shade  and  light, 
Who  sees  in  them  but  levels  brown  and  bare  ; 
Each  change  of  storm  or  sunshine  scatters  free 
On  them  its  largess  of  variety, 
For  Nature  with  cheap  means  still  works  her  wonders 
rare. 


170  AN    INDIAN-SUMMER    REVERIE. 

In  Spring  they  lie  one  broad  expanse  of  green, 
O'er   which   the   light  winds    run   with    glimmering 
feet; 
Here,  yellower  stripes  track  out  the  creek  unseen, 
There,  darker  growths  o'er  hidden  ditches  meet ; 
And  purpler  stains  show  where  the  blossoms  crowd, 
As  if  the  silent  shadow  of  a  cloud 
Hung  there  becalmed,  with  the  next  breath  to  fleet. 

All  round,  upon  the  river's  slippery  edge, 
Witching  to  deeper  calm  the  drowsy  tide, 

Whispers  and  leans  the  breeze-entangling  sedge  ; 
Through  emerald  glooms  the  lingering  waters  slide, 

Or,  sometimes  wavering,  throw  back  the  sun, 

And  the  stiff  banks  in  eddies  melt  and  run 
Of  dimpling  light,  and  with  the  current  seem  to  glide. 

In  Summer  't  is  a  blithesome  sight  to  see, 
As,  step  by  step,  with  measured  swing,  they  pass, 

The  wide-ranked  mowers  wading  to  the  knee, 
Their   sharp   scythes    panting    through   the   thickset 
grass  ; 


AN    INDIAN-SUMMER    REVERIE.  171 

Then,  stretched  beneath  a  rick's  shade  in  a  ring, 
Their  nooning  take,  while  one  begins  to  sing 
A  stave  that  droops  and  dies  'neath  the  close  sky  of 
brass. 

Meanwhile  that  devil-may-care,  the  bobolink, 
Remembering  duty,  in  mid-quaver  stops 

Just  ere  he  sweeps  o'er  rapture's  tremulous  brink, 
And  'twixt  the  winrows  most  demurely  drops, 

A  decorous  bird  of  business,  who  provides 

For  his  brown  mate  and  fledglings  six  besides, 
And  looks  from  right  to  left,  a  farmer  'mid  his  crops. 

Another  change  subdues  them  in  the  Fall, 
But  saddens  not ;  they  still  show  merrier  tints, 

Though  sober  russet  seems  to  cover  all ; 
When   the    first    sunshine    through   their   dew-drops 
glints, 
Look  how  the  yellow  clearness,  streamed  across, 
Redeems  with  rarer  hues  the  season's  loss, 
As  Dawn's  feet  there  had  touched  and  left  their  rosy 
prints. 


172  AN    INDIAN-SUMMER   REVERIE. 

Or  come  when  sunset  gives  its  freshened  zest, 
Lean  o'er  the  bridge  and  let  the  ruddy  thrill, 

While  the  shorn  sun  swells  down  the  hazy  west, 
Glow  opposite  ;  —  the  marshes  drink  their  fill 
And  swoon  with  purple  veins,  then  slowly  fade 
Through  pink  to  brown,  as  eastward  moves   the 
shade, 
Lengthening  with  stealthy  creep,  of  Simond's  darkening 
hill. 

Later,  and  yet  ere  Winter  wholly  shuts, 
Ere  through  the  first  dry  snow  the  runner  grates, 

And  the  loath  cart-wheel  screams  in  slippery  ruts, 
While  firmer  ice  the  eager  boy  awaits, 

Trying  each  buckle  and  strap  beside  the  fire, 
And  until  bed-time  plays  with  his  desire, 
Twenty  times  putting  on  and  off  his  new-bought  skates ; — 

Then,  every  morn,  the  river's  banks  shine  bright 
With  smooth  plate-armor,  treacherous  and  frail, 

By  the  frost's  clinking  hammers  forged  at  night, 
'Gainst  which  the  lances  of  the  sun  prevail, 


AN    INDIAN-SUMMER    REVERIE.  173 

Giving  a  pretty  emblem  of  the  day 
When  guiltier  arms  in  light  shall  melt  away, 
And  states  shall  move  free-limbed,  loosed  from   war's 
cramping  mail. 

And  now  those  waterfalls  the  ebbing  river 
Twice  every  day  creates  on  either  side 

Tinkle,  as  through  their  fresh-sparred  grots  they 
shiver 
In  grass-arched  channels  to  the  sun  denied ; 

High  flaps  in  sparkling  blue  the  far-heard  crow. 
The  silvered  flats  gleam  frostily  below5 
Suddenly  drops  the  gull  and  breaks  the  glassy  tide. 

But,  crowned  in  turn  by  vying  seasons  three, 
Their  winter  halo  hath  a  fuller  ring ; 

This  glory  seems  to  rest  immovably,  — 
The  others  were  too  fleet  and  vanishing ; 
When  the  hid  tide  is  at  its  highest  flow, 
O'er  marsh  and  stream  one  breathless  trance  of 
snow 
With  brooding  fulness  awes  and  hushes  every  thing. 


174  AN    INDIAN-SUMMER    REVERIE. 

The  sunshine  seems  blown  off  by  the  bleak  wind, 
As  pale  as  formal  candles  lit  by  day ; 

Gropes  to  the  sea  the  river  dumb  and  blind  ; 
The    brown   ricks,   snow-thatched   by   the   storm    in 
play, 
Show  pearly  breakers  combing  o'er  their  lee, 
White  crests  as  of  some  just  enchanted  sea, 
Checked  in  their  maddest  leap  and  hanging  poised  mid- 
way. 

But  when  the  eastern  blow,  with  rain  aslant, 
From  mid-sea's  prairies  green  and  rolling  plains 

Drives  in  his  wallowing  herds  of  billows  gaunt, 
And  the  roused  Charles  remembers  in  his  veins 

Old  Ocean's  blood  and  snaps  his  gyves  of  frost, 

That  tyrannous  silence  on  the  shores  is  tost 
In  dreary  wreck,  and  crumbling  desolation  reigns. 

Edgewise  or  flat,  in  Druid-like  device, 
With  leaden  pools  between  or  gullies  bare, 

The  blocks  lie  strewn,  a  bleak  Stonehenge  of  ice ; 
No  life,  no  sound,  to  break  the  grim  despair, 


AN    INDIAN-SUMMER    REVERIE.  ll'O 

Save  sullen  plunge,  as  through  the  sedges  stiff 
Down  crackles  riverward  some  thaw-sapped  cliff, 
Or  when  the  close-wedged  fields  of  ice  crunch  here  and 
there. 

But  let  me  turn  from  fancy-pictured  scenes 
To  that  whose  pastoral  calm  before  me  lies  : 
Here  nothing  harsh  or  rugged  intervenes ; 
The  early  evening  with  her  misty  dyes 

Smooths  off  the  ravelled  edges  of  the  nigh, 
Relieves  the  distant  with  her  cooler  sky, 
And  tones  the  landscape  down,  and  soothes  the  wearied 
eyes. 

There  gleams  my  native  village,  dear  to  me, 
Though  higher  change's  waves  each  day  are  seen, 

Whelming  fields  famed  in  boyhood's  history, 
Sanding  with  houses  the  diminished  green  ; 

There,  in  red  brick,  which  softening  time  defies, 
Stand  square  and  stiff  the  Muses'  factories ;  — 
How  with  my  life  knit  up  is  every  well-known  scene  ! 


176  AN    INDIAN-SUMMEB    REVERIE. 

Flow  on,  dear  river !  not  alone  you  flow- 
To  outward  sight,  and  through  your  marshes  wind  ; 

Fed  from  the  mystic  springs  of  long-ago, 
Your  twin  flows  silent  through  my  world  of  mind : 
Grow  dim,  dear  marshes,  in  the  evening's  gray  ! 
Before  my  inner  sight  ye  stretch  away, 
And   will   for   ever,   though   these   fleshly   eyes    grow 
blind. 

Beyond  that  hillock's  house-bespotted  swell, 
Where  Gothic  chapels  house  the  horse  and  chaise, 

Where  quiet  cits  in  Grecian  temples  dwell, 
Where  Coptic  tombs  resound  with  prayer  and  praise, 
Where  dust  and  mud  the  equal  year  divide, 
There  gentle  Allston  lived,  and  wrought,  and  died, 
Transfiguring  street  and  shop  with  his  illumined  gaze. 

Virgilium  vidi  tantum,  —  I  have  seen 
But  as  a  boy,  who  looks  alike  on  all, 

That  misty  hair,  that  fine  Undine-like  mien, 
Tremulous  as  down  to  feeling's  faintest  call ;  — 


AJS    UfDiAH-SUKKBH    REVERIE.  177 

Ah,  dear  old  homestead !  count  it  to  thy  fame 
That  thither  many  times  the  Painter  came  ;  — 
One    elm    yet   bears   his   name,   a   feathery   tree    and 
tall. 

Swiftly  the  present  fades  in  memory's  glow,  — 
Our  only  sure  possession  is  the  past ; 

The  village  blacksmith  died  a  month  ago, 
And  dim  to  me  the  forge's  roaring  blast ; 
Soon  fire-new  mediaevals  we  shall  see 
Oust  the  black  smithy  from  its  chestnut  tree, 
And  that  hewn  down,  perhaps,  the  beehive  green  and 
vast. 

How  many  times,  prouder  than  king  on  throne, 
Loosed  from  the  village  school-dame's  A-s  and  B-s. 

Panting  have  I  the  creaky  bellows  blown. 
And  watched  the  pent  volcano's  red  increase. 

Then  paused  to  see  the  ponderous  sledge,  brought 

down 
By  that  hard  arm  voluminous  and  brown, 
From  the  white  iron  swarm  its  golden  vanishing  bees. 
12 


178  AN    INDIAN-SUMMER    REVERIE. 

Dear  native  town !   whose  choking  elms  each  year 
With  eddying  dust  before  their  time  turn  gray, 

Pining  for  rain,  —  to  me  thy  dust  is  dear  ; 
It  glorifies  the  eve  of  summer  day, 

And  when  the  westering  sun  half-sunken  burns, 
The  mote-thick  air  to  deepest  orange  turns, 
The  westward  horseman  rides  through  clouds  of  gold 
away, 

So  palpable,  I  've  seen  those  unshorn  few, 
The  six  old  willows  at  the  causey's  end, 

(Such  trees  Paul  Potter  never  dreamed  nor  drew,) 
Through  this  dry  mist  their  checkering  shadows  send, 
Striped,  here  and  there,  with  many  a  long-drawn 

thread, 
Where  streamed  through  leafy  chinks  the   trem- 
bling red, 
Past  which,  in  one  bright  trail,  the  hangbird's  flashes 
blend. 

Yes,  dearer  far  thy  dust  than  all  that  e'er, 
Beneath  the  awarded  crown  of  victory, 


AN    INDIAN- SUMMER    REVERIE.  179 

Gilded  the  blown  Olympic  charioteer  ; 
Though  lightly  prized  the  ribboned  parchments  three. 
Yet  collegisse  juvat,  I  am  glad 
That  here  what  colleging  was  mine  I  had,  — 
It  linked  another  tie,  dear  native  town,  with  thee  ! 

Nearer  art  thou  than  simply  native  earth, 
My  dust  with  thine  concedes  a  deeper  tie  ; 

A  closer  claim  thy  soil  may  well  put  forth, 
Something  of  kindred  more  than  sympathy  ; 

For  in  thy  bounds  I  reverently  laid  away 

That  blinding  anguish  of  forsaken  clay, 
That  title  I  seemed  to  have  in  earth  and  sea  and  sky, 

That  portion  of  my  life  more  choice  to  me 
(Though  brief,  yet  in  itself  so  round  and  whole) 

Than  all  the  imperfect  residue  can  be  ;  — 
The  Artist  saw  his  statue  of  the  soul 

Was  perfect ;  so,  with  one  regretful  stroke, 

The  earthen  model  into  fragments  broke, 
And  without  her  the  impoverished  seasons  roll. 


1«0 


THE   PIONEER. 


What  man  would  live  coffined  with  brick  and  stone, 
Imprisoned  from  the  influences  of  air, 
And  cramped  with  selfish  landmarks  everywhere, 
When  all  before  him  stretches,  furrowless  and  lone, 

The  unmapped  prairie  none  can  fence  or  own  ? 

What  man  would  read  and  read  the  selfsame  faces, 
And,  like  the  marbles  which  the  windmill  grinds, 
Rub  smooth  for  ever  with  the  same  smooth  minds, 
This  year  retracing  last  year's,  every  year's,  dull  traces, 
When  there  are  woods  and  un-man-stifled  places  ? 


THE    PIONEER.  181 

What  man  o'er  one  old  thought  would  pore  and  pore, 
Shut,  like  a  book,  between  its  covers  thin 
For  every  fool  to  leave  his  dog's-ears  in, 
When  solitude  is  his,  and  God  for  evermore, 

Just  for  the  opening  of  a  paltry  door  ? 

What  man  would  watch  life's  oozy  element 
Creep  Letheward  for  ever,  when  he  might 
Down  some  great  river  drift  beyond  men's  sight, 
To  where  the  undethroned  forest's  royal  tent 

Broods  with  its  hush  o'er  half  a  continent  ? 

What  man  with  men  would  push  and  altercate, 
Piecing  out  crooked  means  for  crooked  ends, 
When  he  can  have  the  skies  and  woods  for  friends, 
Snatch  back  the  rudder  of  his  undismantled  fate, 

And  in  himself  be  ruler,  church,  and  state  ? 

Cast  leaves  and  feathers  rot  in  last  year's  nest, 

The  winged  brood,  flown  thence,  new  dwellings  plan ; 
The  serf  of  his  own  Past  is  not  a  man  ; 
To  change  and  change  is  life,  to  move  and  never  rest ; — 

Not  what  we  are,  but  what  we  hope,  is  best. 


182  THE    PIONEER. 

The  wild,  free  woods  make  no  man  halt  or  blind  ; 
Cities  rob  men  of  eyes  and  hands  and  feet, 
Patching  one  whole  of  many  incomplete ; 
The  general  preys  upon  the  individual  mind, 
And  each  alone  is  helpless  as  the  wind. 

Each  man  is  some  man's  servant ;  every  soul 
Is  by  some  other's  presence  quite  discrowned ; 
Each  owes  the  next  through  all  the  imperfect  round, 
Yet  not  with  mutual  help  ;  each  man  is  his  own  goal, 

And  the  whole  earth  must  stop  to  pay  his  toll. 

Here,  life  the  undiminished  man  demands ; 
New  faculties  stretch  out  to  meet  new  wants  ; 
What  Nature  asks,  that  Nature  also  grants  ; 
Here,  man  is  lord,  not  drudge,  of  eyes  and  feet  and  hands, 
And  to  his  life  is  knit  with  hourly  bands. 

Come  out,  then,  from  the  old  thoughts  and  old  ways. 
Before  you  harden  to  a  crystal  cold 
Which  the  new  life  can  shatter,  but  not  mould ; 
Freedom  for  you  still  waits,  still,  looking  backward,  stays, 

But  widens  still  the  irretrievable  space. 


183 


LONGING. 


Of  all  the  myriad  moods  of  mind 

That  through  the  soul  come  thronging, 
Which  one  was  e'er  so  dear,  so  kind, 

So  beautiful,  as  Longing? 
The  thing  we  long  for,  that  we  are 

For  one  transcendent  moment, 
Before  the  Present  poor  and  bare 

Can  make  its  sneering  comment. 

Still,  through  our  paltry  stir  and  strife, 
Glows  down  the  wished  Ideal, 

And  Longing  moulds  in  clay  what  Life 
Carves  in  the  marble  Real ; 

To  let  the  new  life  in,  we  know, 
Desire  must  ope  the  portal ;  — 


184  LONGING. 

Perhaps  the  longing  to  be  so 
Helps  make  the  soul  immortal. 

Longing  is  God's  fresh  heavenward  will 

With  our  poor  earthward  striving  ; 
We  quench  it  that  we  may  be  still 

Content  with  merely  living  ; 
But,  would  we  learn  that  heart's  full  scope 

Which  we  are  hourly  wronging, 
"Our  lives  must  climb  from  hope  to  hope 

And  realize  our  longing. 

Ah  !  let  us  hope  that  to  our  praise 

Good  God  not  only  reckons 
The  moments  when  we  tread  his  ways, 

But  when  the  spirit  beckons,  — • 
That  some  slight  good  is  also  wrought 

Beyond  self-satisfaction, 
When  we  are  simply  good  in  thought, 

How'er  we  fail  in  action. 


THE    VISION 


SIR    LAUNFAL, 


PART     FIRST. 


187 


PKELUDE. 


Over  his  keys  the  musing  organist, 

Beginning  doubtfully  and  far  away, 
First  lets  his  fingers  wander  as  they  list, 

And  builds  a  bridge  from  Dreamland  for  his  lay 
Then,  as  the  touch  of  his  loved  instrument 

Gives  hope  and  fervor,  nearer  draws  his  theme, 
First  guessed  by  faint  auroral  flushes  sent 

Along  the  wavering  vista  of  his  dream. 


Not  only  around  our  infancy 
Doth  heaven  with  all  its  splendors  lie  ; 
Daily,  with  souls  that  cringe  and  plot, 
We  Sinais  climb  and  know  it  not; 


188  THE    VISION    OF    SIR    LAUNFAL. 

Over  our  manhood  bend  the  skies  ; 

Against  our  fallen  and  traitor  lives 
The  great  winds  utter  prophecies ; 

With  our  faint  hearts  the  mountain  strives  , 
Its  arms  outstretched,  the  druid  wood 

Waits  with  its  benedicite  ; 
And  to  our  age's  drowsy  blood 

Still  shouts  the  inspiring  sea. 

Earth  gets  its  price  for  what  Earth  gives  us  ; 

The  beggar  is  taxed  for  a  corner  to  die  in, 
The  priest  hath  his  fee  who  comes  and  shrives  us, 

We  bargain  for  the  graves  we  lie  in  ; 
At  the  Devil's  booth  are  all  things  sold, 
Each  ounce  of  dross  costs  its  ounce  of  gold  ; 

For  a  cap  and  bells  our  lives  we  pay, 
Bubbles  we  earn  with  a  whole  soul's  tasking  : 

'T  is  heaven  alone  that  is  given  away, 
'T  is  only  God  may  be  had  for  the  asking ; 
There  is  no  price  set  on  the  lavish  summer, 
And  June  may  be  had  by  the  poorest  comer. 


THE   VISION    OF    SIR    LAT7NFAL.  189 

,And  what  is  so  rare  as  a  day  in  June  ? 

Then,  if  ever,  come  perfect  days  ; 
Then  Heaven  tries  the  earth  if  it  be  in  tune, 

And  over  it  softly  her  warm  ear  lays  : 
Whether  we  look,  or  whether  we  listen, 
We  hear  life  murmur,  or  see  it  glisten ; 
Every  clod  feels  a  stir  of  might, 

An  instinct  within  it  that  reaches  and  towers, 
And,  grasping  blindly  above  it  for  light, 

Climbs  to  a  soul  in  grass  and  flowers ; 
The  flush  of  life  may  well  be  seen 

Thrilling  back  over  hills  and  valleys ; 
The  cowslip  startles  in  meadows  green, 

The  buttercup  catches  the  sun  in  its  chalice, 
And  there  's  never  a  leaf  or  a  blade  too  mean 

To  be  some  happy  creature's  palace  : 
The  little  bird  sits  at  his  door  in  the  sun, 

Atilt  like  a  blossom  among  the  leaves, 
And  lets  his  illumined  being  o'errun 

With  the  deluge  of  summer  it  receives ; 
His  mate  feels  the  eggs  beneath  her  wings, 
And  the  heart  in  her  dumb  breast  flutters  and  sings  ; 


190 


THE    VISION    OF    SIR    LAUNFAL. 


He  sings  to  the  wide  world,  and  she  to  her  nest,  — 
In  the  nice  ear  of  Nature  which  song  is  the  best  ? 

Now  is  the  high-tide  of  the  year, 

And  whatever  of  life  hath  ebbed  away 

Comes  flooding  back,  with  a  ripply  cheer, 
Into  every  bare  inlet  and  creek  and  bay  ; 

Now  the  heart  is  so  full  that  a  drop  overfills  it, 

We  are  happy  now  because  God  so  wills  it ; 

No  matter  how  barren  the  past  may  have  been, 

'T  is  enough  for  us  now  that  the  leaves  are  green  ; 

We  sit  in  the  warm  shade  and  feel  right  well 

How  the  sap  creeps  up  and  the  blossoms  swell ; 

We  may  shut  our  eyes,  but  we  cannot  help  knowing 

That  skies  are  clear  and  grass  is  growing ; 

The  breeze  comes  whispering  in  our  ear, 

That  dandelions  are  blossoming  near, 

That  maize  has  sprouted,  that  streams  are  flowing, 

That  the  river  is  bluer  than  the  sky, 

That  the  robin  is  plastering  his  house  hard  by  ; 

And  if  the  breeze  kept  the  good  news  back, 

For  other  couriers  we  should  not  lack  ; 


THE    VISION    OF    SIR    LAUNFAL.  191 

We  could  guess  it  all  by  yon  heifer's  lowing. — 
And  hark  !  how  clear  bold  chanticleer, 
Warmed  with  the  new  wine  of  the  year, 

Tells  all  in  his  lusty  crowing  ! 

Joy  comes,  grief  goes,  we  know  not  how  ; 
Every  thing  is  happy  now, 

Every  thing  is  upward  striving  ; 
'T  is  as  easy  now  for  the  heart  to  be  true 
As  for  grass  to  be  green  or  skies  to  be  blue,  — 

'T  is  the  natural  way  of  living : 
Who  knows  whither  the  clouds  have  fled  ? 

In  the  unscarred  heaven  they  leave  no  wake  ; 
And  the  eyes  forget  the  tears  they  have  shed, 

The  heart  forgets  its  sorrow  and  ache  ; 
The  soul  partakes  the  season's  youth, 

And  the  sulphurous  rifts  of  passion  and  woe 
Lie  deep  'neath  a  silence  pure  and  smooth, 

Like  burnt-out  craters  healed  with  snow. 
What  wonder  if  Sir  Launfal  now 
"Remembered  the  keeping  of  his  vow  ? 


192 


PART   FIRST. 


"  My  golden  spurs  now  bring  to  me, 
And  bring  to  me  my  richest  mail, 

For  to-morrow  I  go  over  land  and  sea 
In  search  of  the  Holy  Grail ; 

Shall  never  a  bed  for  me  be  spread, 

Nor  shall  a  pillow  be  under  my  head, 

Till  I  begin  my  vow  to  keep  ; 

Here  on  the  rushes  will  I  sleep, 

And  perchance  there  may  come  a  vision  true 

Ere  day  create  the  world  anew." 
Slowly  Sir  Launfal's  eyes  grew  dim, 
Slumber  fell  like  a  cloud  on  him, 

And  into  his  soul  the  vision  flew. 


THE    VISION    OF    SIR    LAUNFAL.  19'} 


II. 


The  crows  flapped  over  by  twos  and  threes, 
In  the  pool  drowsed  the  cattle  up  to  their  knees, 

The  little  birds  sang  as  if  it  were 

The  one  day  of  summer  in  all  the  year, 
And  the  very  leaves  seemed  to  sing  on  the  trees 
The  castle  alone  in  the  landscape  lay 
Like  an  outpost  of  winter,  dull  and  gray ; 
'T  was  the  proudest  hall  in  the  North  Countree, 
And  never  its  gates  might  opened  be, 
Save  to  lord  or  lady  of  high  degree  ; 
Summer  besieged  it  on  every  side, 
But  the  churlish  stone  her  assaults  defied  ; 
She  could  not  scale  the  chilly  wall, 
Though  round  it  for  leagues  her  pavilions  tall 
Stretched  left  and  right, 
Over  the  hills  and  out  of  sight ; 

Green  and  broad  was  every  tent, 

And  out  of  each  a  murmur  went 
Till  the  breeze  fell  off  at  night. 


13 


194  THE   VISION    OF    SIR    LAUNFAL. 


111. 


The  drawbridge  dropped  with  a  surly  clang, 
And  through  the  dark  arch  a  charger  sprang, 
Bearing  Sir  Launfal,  the  maiden  knight, 
In  his  gilded  mail,  that  flamed  so  bright 
It  seemed  the  dark  castle  had  gathered  all 
Those  shafts  the  fierce  sun  had  shot  over  its  wall 

In  his  siege  of  three  hundred  summers  long, 
And,  binding  them  all  in  one  blazing  sheaf, 

Had  cast  them  forth  :  so,  young  and  strong, 
And  lightsome  as  a  locust-leaf, 
Sir  Launfal  flashed  forth  in  his  unscarred  mail, 
To  seek  in  all  climes  for  the  Holy  Grail. 

IV. 

It  was  morning  on  hill  and  stream  and  tree, 
And  morning  in  the  young  knight's  heart ; 

Only  the  castle  moodily 

Rebuffed  the  gifts  of  the  sunshine  free, 
And  gloomed  by  itself  apart ; 


THE    VISION    OF    SIR    LAUNFAL.  195 

The  season  brimmed  all  other  things  up 
Full  as  the  rain  fills  the  pitcher-plant's  cup. 

v. 

As  Sir  Launfal  made  morn  through  the  darksome  gate, 

He  was  ware  of  a  leper,  crouched  by  the  same, 
Who  begged  with  his  hand  and  moaned  as  he  sate  ; 

And  a  loathing  over  Sir  Launfal  came, 
The  sunshine  went  out  of  his  soul  with  a  thrill, 

The  flesh  'neath  his  armor  did  shrink  and  crawl, 
And  midway  its  leap  his  heart  stood  still 

Like  a  frozen  waterfall ; 
For  this  man,  so  foul  and  bent  of  stature, 
Rasped  harshly  against  his  dainty  nature, 
And  seemed  the  one  blot  on  the  summer  morn,  — 
So  he  tossed  him  a  piece  of  gold  in  scorn. 

VI. 

The  leper  raised  not  the  gold  from  the  dust : 
"  Better  to  me  the  poor  man's  crust, 
Better  the  blessing  of  the  poor, 
Though  I  turn  me  empty  from  his  door  ; 


196  THE    VISION    OF    SIR    LAUNFAL. 

That  is  no  true  alms  which  the  hand  can  hold  ; 
He  gives  nothing  but  worthless  gold 

Who  gives  from  a  sense  of  duty  ; 
But  he  who  gives  a  slender  mite, 
And  gives  to  that  which  is  out  of  sight, 

That  thread  of  the  all-sustaining  Beauty 
Which  runs  through  all  and  doth  all  unite,  — 
The  hand  cannot  clasp  the  whole  of  his  alms, 
The  heart  outstretches  its  eager  palms, 
For  a  god  goes  with  it  and  makes  it  store 
To  the  soul  that  was  starving  in  darkness  before." 


THE    VISION 


OF 


SIR    LAUNFAL. 


PART    SECOND. 


Don  5 
From 


Andfii 
Slender 


PRELUDE 


Down  swept  the  chill  wind  from  the  mountain  peak, 
From  the  snow  five  thousand  summers  old  ; 

On  open  wold  and  hill-top  bleak 
It  had  gathered  all  the  cold, 

And  whirled  it  like  sleet  on  the  wanderer's  cheek  ; 

It  carried  a  shiver  everywhere 

From  the  unleafed  boughs  and  pastures  bare  ; 

The  little  brook  heard  it  and  built  a  roof 

'Neath  which  he  could  house  him,  winter-proof; 

All  night  by  the  white  stars'  frosty  gleams 

He  groined  his  arches  and  matched  his  beams  ; 

Slender  and  clear  were  his  crystal  spars 

As  the  lashes  of  light  that  trim  the  stars ; 


200  THE    VISION    OF    SIR    LAUNFAL. 

He  sculptured  every  summer  delight 
In  his  halls  and  chambers  out  of  sight ; 
Sometimes  his  tinkling  waters  slipt 
Down  through  a  frost-leaved  forest-crypt, 
Long,  sparkling  aisles  of  steel-stemmed  trees 
Bending  to  counterfeit  a  breeze  ; 
Sometimes  the  roof  no  fretwork  knew 
But  silvery  mosses  that  downward  grew ; 
Sometimes  it  was  carved  in  sharp  relief 
With  quaint  arabesques  of  ice-fern  leaf; 
Sometimes  it  was  simply  smooth  and  clear 
For  the  gladness  of  heaven  to  shine  through,  and  here 
He  had  caught  the  nodding  bulrush-tops 
And  hung  them  thickly  with  diamond  drops, 
Which  crystalled  the  beams  of  moon  and  sun, 
And  made  a  star  of  every  one  : 
No  mortal  builder's  most  rare  device 
Could  match  this  winter-palace  of  ice  ; 
'T  was  as  if  every  image  that  mirrored  lay 
In  his  depths  serene  through  the  summer  day, 
Each  flitting  shadow  of  earth  and  sky, 
Lest  the  happy  model  should  be  lost, 


THE    VISION    OF    SIR    LAUNFAL.  201 

Had  been  mimicked  in  fairy  masonry 
By  the  elfin  builders  of  the  frost. 

Within  the  hall  are  song  and  laughter, 

The  cheeks  of  Christmas  glow  red  and  jolly, 
And  sprouting  is  every  corbel  and  rafter 

With  the  lightsome  green  of  ivy  and  holly  ; 
Through  the  deep  gulf  of  the  chimney  wide 
Wallows  the  Yule-log's  roaring  tide  ; 
The  broad  flame-pennons  droop  and  flap 

And  belly  and  tug  as  a  flag  in  the  wind ; 
Like  a  locust  shrills  the  imprisoned  sap, 

Hunted  to  death  in  its  galleries  blind  ; 
And  swift  little  troops  of  silent  sparks, 

Now  pausing,  now  scattering  away  as  in  fear, 
Go  threading  the  soot- forest's  tangled  darks 

Like  herds  of  startled  deer. 

But  the  wind  without  was  eager  and  sharp, 
Of  Sir  Launfal's  gray  hair  it  makes  a  harp, 

And  rattles  and  wrings 

The  icy  strings, 


202  THE    VISION    OF    SIR    LAUNFAL. 

Singing,  in  dreary  monotone, 

A  Christmas  carol  of  its  own, 

Whose  burden  still,  as  he  might  guess, 

Was  —  "  Shelterless,  shelterless,  shelterless  !" 

The  voice  of  the  seneschal  flared  like  a  torch 
As  he  shouted  the  wanderer  away  from  the  porch, 
And  he  sat  in  the  gateway  and  saw  all  night 
The  great  hall-fire,  so  cheery  and  bold, 
Through  the  window-slits  of  the  castle  old, 
Build  out  its  piers  of  ruddy  light 
Against  the  drift  of  the  cold. 


203 


PART    SECOND 


There  was  never  a  leaf  on  bush  or  tree, 
The  bare  boughs  rattled  shudderingly  ; 
The  river  was  dumb  and  could  not  speak, 

For  the  frost's  swift  shuttles  its  shroud  had  spun ; 
A  single  crow  on  the  tree-top  bleak 

From  his  shining  feathers  shed  off  the  cold  sun ; 
Again  it  was  morning,  but  shrunk  and  cold, 
As  if  her  veins  were  sapless  and  old, 
And  she  rose  up  decrepitly 
For  a  last  dim  look  at  earth  and  sea. 


204  THE    VISION    OF    SIR    LAUNFAL. 

II. 

Sir  Launfal  turned  from  his  own  hard  gate, 

For  another  heir  in  his  earldom  sate  ; 

An  old,  bent  man,  worn  out  and  frail, 

He  came  back  from  seeking  the  Holy  Grail ; 

Little  he  recked  of  his  earldom's  loss, 

No  more  on  his  surcoat  was  blazoned  the  cross, 

But  deep  in  his  soul  the  sign  he  wore, 

The  badge  of  the  suffering  and  the  poor. 

in. 

Sir  LaunfaPs  raiment  thin  and  spare 

Was  idle  mail  'gainst  the  barbed  air, 

For  it  was  just  at  the  Christmas  time  ; 

So  he  mused,  as  he  sat,  of  a  sunnier  clime, 

And  sought  for  a  shelter  from  cold  and  snow 

In  the  light  and  warmth  of  long  ago  ; 

He  sees  the  snake-like  caravan  crawl 

O'er  the  edge  of  the  desert,  black  and  small, 

Then  nearer  and  nearer,  till,  one  by  one, 

He  can  count  the  camels  in  the  sun, 


THE    VISION    OF    SIR    LAUNFAL.  205 

As  over  the  red-hot  sands  they  pass 
To  where,  in  its  slender  necklace  of  grass, 
The  little  spring  laughed  and  leapt  in  the  shade, 
And  with  its  own  self  like  an  infant  played, 
And  waved  its  signal  of  palms. 

IV. 

"  For  Christ's  sweet  sake,  I  beg  an  alms  "  ;  — 

The  happy  camels  may  reach  the  spring, 

But  Sir  Launfal  sees  naught  save  the  grewsome  thing, 

The  leper,  lank  as  the  rain-blanched  bone, 

That  cowered  beside  him,  a  thing  as  lone 

And  white  as  the  ice-isles  of  Northern  seas 

In  the  desolate  horror  of  his  disease. 

v. 

And  Sir  Launfal  said,  —  "I  behold  in  thee 

An  image  of  Him  who  died  on  the  tree  ; 

Thou  also  hast  had  thy  crown  of  thorns,  — 

Thou  also  hast  had  the  world's  buffets  and  scorns,  — 

And  to  thy  life  were  not  denied 

The  wounds  in  the  hands  and  feet  and  side  : 


206  THE    VISION    OF    SIR    LAUNFAL. 

Mild  Mary's  Son,  acknowledge  me  ; 
Behold,  through  him,  I  give  to  thee  !  " 

VI. 

Then  the  soul  of  the  leper  stood  up  in  his  eyes 

And  looked  at  Sir  Launfal,  and  straightway  he 
Remembered  in  what  a  haughtier  guise 

He  had  flung  an  alms  to  leprosie, 
When  he  caged  his  young  life  up  in  gilded  mail 
And  set  forth  in  search  of  the  Holy  Grail. 
The  heart  within  him  was  ashes  and  dust ; 
He  parted  in  twain  his  single  crust, 
He  broke  the  ice  on  the  streamlet's  brink, 
And  gave  the  leper  to  eat  and  drink ; 
'T  was  a  mouldy  crust  of  coarse  brown  bread, 

'T  was  water  out  of  a  wooden  bowl,  — 
Yet  with  fine  wheaten  bread  was  the  leper  fed, 

And  't  was  red  wine  he  drank  with  his  thirsty  soul. 

VII. 

As  Sir  Launfal  mused  with  a  downcast  face, 
A  light  shone  round  about  the  place  ; 


THE    VISION    OF    SIR    LAUNFAL.  207 

The  leper  no  longer  crouched  at  his  side, 

But  stood  before  him  glorified, 

Shining  and  tall  and  fair  and  straight 

As  the  pillar  that  stood  by  the  Beautiful  Gate,  — 

Himself  the  Gate  whereby  men  can 

Enter  the  temple  of  God  in  Man. 

VIII. 

His  words  were  shed  softer  than  leaves  from  the  pine, 

And  they  fell  on  Sir  Launfal  as  snows  on  the  brine, 

Which  mingle  their  softness  and  quiet  in  one 

With  the  shaggy  unrest  they  float  down  upon  ; 

And  the  voice  that  was  calmer  than  silence  said, 

"  Lo,  it  is  I,  be  not  afraid  ! 

In  many  climes,  without  avail, 

Thou  hast  spent  thy  life  for  the  Holy  Grail ; 

Behold,  it  is  here,  —  this  cup  which  thou 

Didst  fill  at  the  streamlet  for  me  but  now  ; 

This  crust  is  my  body  broken  for  thee, 

This  water  His  blood  that  died  on  the  tree ; 

The  Holy  Supper  is  kept,  indeed, 

In  whatso  we  share  with  another's  need, — 


208  THE    VISION    OF    SIR    LAUNFAL. 

Not  that  which  we  give,  but  what  we  share,  — 
For  the  gift  without  the  giver  is  bare ; 
Who  bestows  himself  with  his  alms  feeds  three, 
Himself,  his  hungering  neighbour,  and  me." 

IX. 

Sir  Launfal  awoke,  as  from  a  swound  :  — 
"  The  Grail  in  my  castle  here  is  found ! 
Hang  my  idle  armor  up  on  the  wall, 
Let  it  be  the  spider's  banquet-hall  ; 
He  must  be  fenced  with  stronger  mail 
Who  would  seek  and  find  the  Holy  Grail. " 

x. 

The  castle-gate  stands  open  now, 

And  the  wanderer  is  welcome  to  the  hall 

As  the  hangbird  is  to  the  elm-tree  bough ; 
No  longer  scowl  the  turrets  tall, 

The  Summer's  long  siege  at  last  is  o'er  ; 

When  the  first  poor  outcast  went  in  at  the  door, 

She  entered  with  him  in  disguise, 

And  mastered  the  fortress  by  surprise  ; 


THE    VISION    OF    SIR    LAUNFAL.  '^09 

There  is  no  spot  she  loves  so  well  on  ground, 

She  lingers  and  smiles  there  the  whole  year  round ; 

The  meanest  serf  on  Sir  Launfal's  land 

Has  hall  and  bower  at  his  command  ; 

And  there  's  no  poor  man  in  the  North  Countree 

But  is  lord  of  the  earldom  as  much  as  he. 


210  THE    VISION    OF    SIR    LAUNFAL. 


NOTE. 


According  to  the  mythology  of  the  Romancers,  the  San 
Greal,  or  Holy  Grail,  was  the  cup  out  of  winch  Jesus  partook  of 
the  last  supper  with  his  disciples.  It  was  brought  into  England 
by  Joseph  of  Arimathea,  and  remained  there,  an  object  of  pilgrim- 
age and  adoration,  for  many  years  in  the  keeping  of  his  lineal 
descendants.  It  was  incumbent  upon  those  who  had  charge  of  it 
to  be  chaste  in  thought,  word,  and  deed ;  but  one  of  the  keepers 
having  broken  this  condition,  the  Holy  Grail  disappeared.  From 
that  time  it  was  a  favorite  enterprise  of  the  knights  of  Arthur's 
court  to  go  in  search  of  it.  Sir  Galahad  was  at  last  successful  in 
finding  it,  as  may  be  read  in  the  seventeenth  book  of  the  Ro- 
mance of  King  Arthur.  Tennyson  has  made  Sir  Galahad  the 
subject  of  one  of  the  most  exquisite  of  his  poems. 

The  plot  (if  I  may  give  that  name  to  any  thing  so  slight)  of 
the  following  poem  is  my  own,  and,  to  serve  its  purposes,  I  have 
enlarged  the  circle  of  competition  in  search  of  the  miraculous 
cup  in  such  a  manner  as  to  include,  not  only  other  persons  than 
the  heroes  of  the  Round  Table,  but  also  a  period  of  time  subse- 
quent to  the  date  of  King  Arthur's  reign. 


211 


ODE    TO   FRANCE. 


FEBRUARY,    1S48. 


I. 

As,  flake  by  flake,  the  beetling  avalanches 

Build  up  their  imminent  crags  of  noiseless  snow, 
Till  some  chance  thrill  the  loosened  ruin  launches 

And  the  blind  havoc  leaps  unwarned  below, 
So  grew  and  gathered  through  the  silent  years 

The  madness  of  a  People,  wrong  by  wrong. 
There  seemed  no  strength  in  the  dumb  toiler's  tears,  — 

No  strength  in  sunering  ;  —  but  the  Past  was  strong; : 
The  brute  despair  of  trampled  centuries 

Leaped  up  with  one  hoarse  yell  and  snapped  its  bands, 

Groped  for  its  right  with  horny,  callous  hands. 
And  stared  around  for  God  with  bloodshot  eyes. 

What  wonder  if  those  palms  were  all  too  hard 


212  ODE    TO    FRANCE. 

For  nice  distinctions,  —  if  that  msenad  throng  — 

They  whose  thick  atmosphere  no  bard 
Had  shivered  with  the  lightning  of  his  song, 
Brutes  with  the  memories  and  desires  of  men, 
Whose  chronicles  were  writ,  with  iron  pen, 

In  the  crooked  shoulder  and  the  forehead  low  — 
Set  wrong  to  balance  wrong, 
And  physicked  woe  with  woe  ? 

IT. 

They  did  as  they  were  taught ;  not  theirs  the  blame, 

If  men  who  scattered  fire-brands  reaped  the  flame  : 
They  trampled  Peace  beneath  their  savage  feet, 

And  by  her  golden  tresses  drew 
Mercy  along  the  pavement  of  the  street. 

Oj  Freedom  !  Freedom  !  is  thy  morning-dew 
So  gory  red  ?  Alas,  thy  light  had  ne'er 
Shone  in  upon  the  chaos  of  their  lair  ! 

They  reared  to  thee  such  symbol  as  they  knew, 
And  worshipped  it  with  flame  and  blood,  — 
A  Vengeance,  axe  in  hand,  that  stood 

Holding  a  tyrant's  head  up  by  the  clotted  hair. 


ODE    TO    FRANCE.  213 

III. 

What  wrongs  the  Oppressor  suffered,  these  we  know  ; 

These  have  found  piteous  voice  in  song  and  prose  ; 
But  for  the  Oppressed,  their  darkness  and  their  woe, 

Their  grinding  centuries,  —  what  Muse  had  those  ? 
Though  hall  and  palace  had  nor  eyes  nor  ears, 

Hardening  a  people's  heart  to  senseless  stone, 
Thou  knewest  them,  0  Earth,  that  drank  their  tears, 

O  Heaven,  that  heard  their  inarticulate  moan ! 
They  noted  down  their  fetters,  link  by  link ; 
Coarse  was  the  hand  that  scrawled,  and  red  the  ink ; 

Rude  was  their  score,  as  suits  unlettered  men,  — 
Notched  with  a  headsman's  axe  upon  a  block  : 
What  marvel  if,  when  came  the  avenging  shock, 

'T  was  Ate,  not  Urania,  held  the  pen  ? 

IV. 

With  eye  averted  and  an  anguished  frown, 

Loathingly  glides  the  Muse  through  scenes  of  strife, 

Where,  like  the  heart  of  Vengeance  up  and  down, 
Throbs  in  its  framework  the  blood-muffled  knife  ; 

Slow  are  the  steps  of  Freedom,  but  her  feet 
Turn  never  backward  :  hers  no  bloody  glare  ; 


214  ODE    TO    FRANCE. 

Her  light  is  calm,  and  innocent,  and  sweet, 
And  where  it  enters  there  is  no  despair  : 

Not  first  on  palace  and  cathedral-spire 

Quivers  and  gleams  that  unconsuming  fire  ; 

While  these  stand  black  against  her  morning  skies, 

The  peasant  sees  it  leap  from  peak  to  peak 
Along  his  hills  ;  the  craftsman's  burning  eyes 

Own  with  cool  tears  its  influence  mother-meek  : 
It  lights  the  poet's  heart  up  like  a  star  ;  — 
Ah !  while  the  tyrant  deemed  it  still  afar, 

And  twined  with  golden  threads  his  futile  snare, 
That  swift,  convicting  glow  all  round  him  ran ; 
'T  was  close  beside  him  there, 

Sunrise  whose  Memnon  is  the  soul  of  man. 

v. 
O  Broker-King,  is  this  thy  wisdom's  fruit  ? 

A  dynasty  plucked  out  as  't  were  a  weed 

Grown  rankly  in  a  night,  that  leaves  no  seed ! 
Could  eighteen  years  strike  down  no  deeper  root  ? 

But  now  thy  vulture  eye  was  turned  on  Spain,  — 
A  shout  from  Paris,  and  thy  crown  falls  off, 

Thy  race  has  ceased  to  reign, 


ODE    TO    FRANCE.  215 

And  thou  become  a  fugitive  and  scoff : 

Slippery  the  feet  that  mount  by  stairs  of  gold, 

And  weakest  of  all  fences  one  of  steel ;  — 
Go  and  keep  school  again  like  him  of  old, 

The  Syracusan  tyrant ;  —  thou  mayst  feel 

Royal  amid  a  birch-swayed  commonweal ! 

VI. 

Not  long  can  he  be  ruler  who  allows 

His  time  to  run  before  him ;  thou  wast  naught 
Soon  as  the  strip  of  gold  about  thy  brows 

Was  no  more  emblem  of  the  People's  thought : 
Vain  were  thy  bayonets  against  the  foe 

Thou  hadst  to  cope  with ;  thou  didst  wage 
War  not  with  Frenchmen  merely ;  —  no, 

Thy  strife  was  with  the  Spirit  of  the  Age, 
The  invisible  Spirit  whose  first  breath  divine 

Scattered  thy  frail  endeavour, 
And,  like    poor  last    year's   leaves,  whirled  thee   and 
thine 
Into  the  Dark  for  ever  ! 


216  ODE    TO    FRANCE. 

VII. 

Is  here  no  triumph  ?     Nay,  what  though 
The  yellow  blood  of  Trade  meanwhile  should  pour 

Along  its  arteries  a  shrunken  flow, 
And  the  idle  canvas  droop  around  the  shore  ? 
These  do  not  make  a  state, 
Nor  keep  it  great ; 
I  think  God  made 
The  earth  for  man,  not  trade  ; 
And  where  each  humblest  human  creature 
Can  stand,  no  more  suspicious  or  afraid, 
Erect  and  kingly  in  his  right  of  nature, 
To  heaven  and  earth  knit  with  harmonious  ties,  — 
Where  I  behold  the  exultation 
Of  manhood  glowing  in  those  eyes 
That  had  been  dark  for  ages, 
Or  only  lit  with  bestial  loves  and  rages, — ■ 
There  I  behold  a  Nation  : 

The  France  which  lies 
Between  the  Pyrenees  and  Rhine 
Is  the  least  part  of  France  ; 


ODE    TO    FRANCE.  217 

I  see  her  rather  in  the  soul  whose  shine 
Burns  through  the  craftsman's  grimy  countenance, 
In  the  new  energy  divine 

Of  Toil's  enfranchised  glance. 

VIII. 

And  if  it  be  a  dream,  — 
If  the  great  Future  be  the  little  Past 
'Neath  a  new  mask,  which  drops  and  shows  at  last 
The  same  weird,  mocking  face  to  balk  and  blast,  — 
Yet,  Muse,  a  gladder  measure  suits  the  theme, 
And  the  Tyrtsean  harp 
Loves  notes  more  resolute  and  sharp, 
Throbbing,  as  throbs  the  bosom,  hot  and  fast : 
Such  visions  are  of  morning, 
Theirs  is  no  vague  forewarning, 
The  dreams  which  nations  dream  come  true, 
And  shape  the  word  anew ; 
If  this  be  a  sleep, 
Make  it  long,  make  it  deep, 
O  Father,  who  sendest  the  harvests  men  reap  ! 


218  ODE  TO  FRANCE. 

While  Labor  so  sleepeth 

His  sorrow  is  gone, 
No  longer  he  weepeth, 
But  smileth  and  steepeth 

His  thoughts  in  the  dawn  ; 
He  heareth  Hope  yonder 

Rain,  lark-like,  her  fancies, 
His  dreaming  hands  wander 

'Mid  heart's-ease  and  pansies  ; 
"  'T  is  a  dream  !     'T  is  a  vision  ! 

Shrieks  Mammon  aghast ; 
"  The  day's  broad  derision 

Will  chase  it  at  last ; 
Ye  are  mad,  ye  have  taken 
A  slumbering  kraken 

For  firm  land  of  the  Past !  " 
Ah  !  if  he  awaken, 

God  shield  us  all  then, 
If  this  dream  rudely  shaken 

Shall  cheat  him  agen  ! 


ODE    TO    FRANCE. 


219 


IX. 

Since  first  I  heard  our  North-wind  blow, 
Since  first  I  saw  Atlantic  throw 
On  our  fierce  rocks  his  thunderous  snow, 
I  loved  thee,  Freedom  ;  as  a  boy 
The  rattle  of  thy  shield  at  Marathon 
Did  with  a  Grecian  joy- 
Through  all  my  pulses  run  ; 
But  I  have  learned  to  love  thee  now 
Without  the  helm  upon  thy  gleaming  brow, 

A  maiden  mild  and  undefiled 
Like  her  who  bore  the  world's  redeeming  child  ; 
And  surely  never  did  thy  altars  glance 
With  purer  fires  than  now  in  France  ; 
While,  in  their  bright  white  flashes, 
Wrong's  shadow,  backward  cast, 
Waves  cowering  o'er  the  ashes 

Of  the  dead,  blaspheming  Past, 
O'er  the  shapes  of  fallen  giants, 

His  own  unburied  brood, 
Whose  dead  hands  clench  defiance 
At  the  overpowering  Good  : 


220  ODE     TO    FRANCE. 

And  down  the  happy  Future  runs  a  flood 

Of  prophesying  light ; 
It  shows  an  Earth  no  longer  stained  with  blood, 
Blossom  and  fruit  where  now  we  see  the  bud 

Of  Brotherhood  and  Right. 


221 


KOSSUTH. 


A  race  of  nobles  may  die  out, 
A  royal  line  may  leave  no  heir  ; 
Wise  Nature  sets  no  guards  about 
Her  pewter  plate  and  wooden  ware. 

But  they  fail  not,  the  kinglier  breed, 
Who  starry  diadems  attain  ; 
To  dungeon,  axe,  and  stake  succeed 
Heirs  of  the  old  heroic  strain. 

The  zeal  of  Nature  never  cools, 
Nor  is  she  thwarted  of  her  ends  : 


222 


KOSSUTH. 


When  gapped  and  dulled  her  cheaper  tools, 
Then  she  a  saint  and  prophet  spends. 

Land  of  the  Magyars  !  though  it  be 
The  tyrant  may  relink  his  chain, 
Already  thine  the  victory, 
As  the  just  Future  measures  gain. 

Thou  hast  succeeded,  thou  hast  won 
The  deathly  travail's  amplest  worth  : 
A  nation's  duty  thou  hast  done, 
Giving  a  hero  to  our  earth. 

And  he,  let  come  what  will  of  woe, 
Has  saved  the  land  he  strove  to  save  ; 
No  Cossack  hordes,  no  traitor's  blow. 
Can  quench  the  voice  shall  haunt  his  grave. 

"  I  Kossuth  am  :  O  Future,  thou 
That  clear'st  the  just  and  blott'st  the  vile, 
O'er  this  small  dust  in  reverence  bow, 
Remembering  what  I  was  erewhile. 


KOSSUTH.  223 

"  I  was  the  chosen  trump  wherethrough 

Our  God  sent  forth  awakening  breath  ; 

Came  chains  ?    Came  death  ?     The  strain  He  blew 

Sounds  on,  outliving  chains  and  death." 


224 


TO   LAMARTINE. 


I  did  not  praise  thee  when  the  crowd, 

'Witched  with  the  moment's  inspiration, 
Vexed  thy  still  ether  with  hosannas  loud, 
And  stamped  their  dusty  adoration  ; 
I  but  looked  upward  with  the  rest, 
And,  when  they  shouted  Greatest,  whispered  Best. 

They  raised  thee  not,  but  rose  to  thee, 

Their  fickle  wreaths  about  thee  flinging  ; 

So  on  some  marble  Phoebus  the  high  sea 

Might  leave  his  worthless  sea-weed  clinging, 
But  pious  hands,  with  reverent  care, 

Make  the  pure  limbs  once  more  sublimely  bare. 


TO    LAMARTINE.  225 

Now  thou  'rt  thy  plain,  grand  self  again, 

Thou  art  secure  from  panegyric,  — 
Thou  who  gav'st  politics  an  epic  strain, 

And  actedst  Freedom's  noblest  lyric  ; 
This  side  the  Blessed  Isles,  no  tree 
Grows  green  enough  to  make  a  wreath  for  thee. 

Nor  can  blame  cling  to  thee  ;  the  snow 

From  swinish  foot-prints  takes  no  staining, 

But,  leaving  the  gross  soils  of  earth  below, 
Its  spirit  mounts,  the  skies  regaining, 
And  unresenting  falls  again, 

To  beautify  the  world  with  dews  and  rain. 

The  highest  duty  to  mere  man  vouchsafed 
Was  laid  on  thee,  —  out  of  wild  chaos, 

When  the  roused  popular  ocean  foamed  and  chafed, 
And  vulture  War  from  his  Imaus 
Snuffed  blood,  to  summon  homely  Peace, 

And  show  that  only  order  is  release. 

To  carve  thy  fullest  thought*  what  though 

Time  was  not  granted  ?     Aye  in  histoiy, 

15 


226  TO    LAMARTINE. 

Like  that  Dawn's  face  which  baffled  Angelo, 
Left  shapeless,  grander  for  its  mystery, 
Thy  great  Design  shall  stand,  and  day 
Flood  its  blind  front  from  Orients  far  away. 

Who  says  thy  day  is  o'er  ?     Control, 
My  heart,  that  bitter  first  emotion  ; 

While  men  shall  reverence  the  steadfast  soul, 
The  heart  in  silent  self-devotion 
Breaking,  the  mild,  heroic  mien, 

Thou  'It  need  no  prop  of  marble,  Lamartine. 

If  France  reject  thee,  't  is  not  thine, 
But  her  own,  exile  that  she  utters  ; 

Ideal  France,  the  deathless,  the  divine, 

Will  be  where  thy  white  pennon  flutters, 
As  once  the  nobler  Athens  went 

With  Aristides  into  banishment. 

No  fitting  metewand  hath  To-day 

For  measuring  spirits  of  thy  stature,  — 

Only  the  Future  can  reach  up  to  lay 
The  laurel  on  that  lofty  nature,  — 


TO    LAMARTINE.  227 

Bard,  who  with  some  diviner  art 
Hast  touched  the  bard's  true  lyre,  a  nation's  heart. 

Swept  by  thy  hand,  the  gladdened  chords, 

Crashed  now  in  discords  fierce  by  others, 

Gave  forth  one  note  beyond  all  skill  of  words, 
And  chimed  together,  We  are  brothers. 
O  poem  unsurpassed  !  it  ran 

All  round  the  world,  unlocking  man  to  man. 

France  is  too  poor  to  pay  alone 

The  service  of  that  ample  spirit ; 
Paltry  seem  low  dictatorship  and  throne, 

If  balanced  with  thy  simple  merit. 
They  had  to  thee  been  rust  and  loss ; 
Thy  aim  was  higher,  —  thou  hast  climbed  a  Cross. 


228 


A   PARABLE. 


Said  Christ  our  Lord,  "  I  will  go  and  see 
How  the  men,  my  brethren,  believe  in  me." 
He  passed  not  again  through  the  gate  of  birth, 
But  made  himself  known  to  the  children  of  earth. 

Then  said  the  chief  priests,  and  rulers,  and  kings, 
"  Behold,  now,  the  Giver  of  all  good  things  ; 
Go  to,  let  us  welcome  with  pomp  and  state 
Him  who  alone  is  mighty  and  great." 

With  carpets  of  gold  the  ground  they  spread 

Wherever  the  Son  of  Man  should  tread, 

And  in  palace-chambers  lofty  and  rare 

They  lodged  him,  and  served  him  with  kingly  fare. 


A    PARABLE.  229 

Great  organs  surged  through  arches  dim 
Their  jubilant  floods  in  praise  of  him, 
And  in  church  and  palace,  and  judgment-hall, 
He  saw  his  image  high  over  all. 

But  still,  wherever  his  steps  they  led, 
The  Lord  in  sorrow  bent  down  his  head, 
And  from  under  the  heavy  foundation-stones, 
The  son  of  Mary  heard  bitter  groans. 

And  in  church  and  palace,  and  judgment-hall, 
He  marked  great  fissures  that  rent  the  wall, 
And  opened  wider  and  yet  more  wide 
As  the  living  foundation  heaved  and  sighed. 

"  Have  ye  founded  your  thrones  and  altars,  then, 
On  the  bodies  and  souls  of  living  men  ? 
And  think  ye  that  building  shall  endure, 
Which  shelters  the  noble  and  crushes  the  poor  ? 

"  With  gates  of  silver  and  bars  of  gold, 

Ye  have  fenced  my  sheep  from  their  Father's  fold ; 


230  A   PARABLE. 

I  have  heard  the  dropping  of  their  tears 
In  heaven,  these  eighteen  hundred  years." 

"  O  Lord  and  Master,  not  ours  the  guilt, 
We  build  but  as  our  fathers  built ; 
Behold  thine  images,  how  they  stand, 
Sovereign  and  sole,  through  all  our  land. 

"  Our  task  is  hard, —  with  sword  and  flame 
To  hold  thy  earth  for  ever  the  same, 
And  with  sharp  crooks  of  steel  to  keep 
Still,  as  thou  leftest  them,  thy  sheep.'" 

Then  Christ  sought  out  an  artisan, 
A  low-browed,  stunted,  haggard  man, 
And  a  motherless  girl,  whose  fingers  thin 
Pushed  from  her  faintly  want  and  sin. 

These  set  he  in  the  midst  of  them, 
And  as  they  drew  back  their  garment-hem, 
For  fear  of  defilement,  "  Lo,  here,"  said  he, 
"  The  images  ye  have  made  of  me  !  " 


231 


ODE 

WRITTEN  FOR  THE   CELEBRATION  OP  THE    INTRODUCTION  OF   THE  COCHITUATE 
WATER  INTO  THE  CITY  OF  BOSTON. 

My  name  is  Water :  I  have  sped 

Through  strange,  dark  ways,  untried  before, 

By  pure  desire  of  friendship  led, 
Cochituate's  ambassador  ; 

He  sends  four  royal  gifts  by  me  : 

Long  life,  health,  peace,  and  purity. 

I  'm  Ceres'  cup-bearer  ;  I  pour, 

For  flowers  and  fruits  and  all  their  kin, 

Her  ciystal  vintage,  from  of  yore 
Stored  in  old  Earth's  selectest  bin, 

Flora's  Falernian  ripe,  since  God 

The  wine-press  of  the  deluge  trod. 


1 


232  ODE    ON    THE    INTRODUCTION 

In  that  far  isle  whence,  iron-willed, 

The  New  World's  sires  their  bark  unmoored, 

The  fairies'  acorn-cups  I  filled 
Upon  the  toadstool's  silver  board, 

And,  'neath  Heme's  oak,  for  Shakspeare's  sight, 

Strewed  moss  and  grass  with  diamonds  bright. 

No  fairies  in  the  Mayflower  came, 

And,  lightsome  as  I  sparkle  here, 
For  Mother  Bay-State,  busy  dame, 

I  've  toiled  and  drudged  this  many  a  year, 
Throbbed  in  her  engines'  iron  veins, 
Twirled  myriad  spindles  for  her  gains. 

I,  too,  can  weave  ;  the  warp  I  set 

Through  which  the  sun  his  shuttle  throws, 

And,  bright  as  Noah  saw  it,  yet 
For  you  the  arching  rainbow  glows, 

A  sight  in  Paradise  denied 

To  unfallen  Adam  and  his  bride. 

When  Winter  held  me  in  his  grip, 

You  seized  and  sent  me  o'er  the  wave. 


OF    COCHITUATE    WATER.  233 


Ungrateful !  in  a  prison-ship  ; 

But  I  forgive,  not  long  a  slave, 
For,  soon  as  summer  south-winds  blew, 
Homeward  I  fled,  disguised  as  dew. 

For  countless  services  I  'm  fit, 
Of  use,  of  pleasure,  and  of  gain, 

But  lightly  from  all  bonds  I  flit, 
Incapable  as  fire  of  stain  ; 

From  mill  and  wash-tub  I  escape, 

And  take  in  heaven  my  proper  shape. 

So  free  myself,  to-day,  elate 

I  come  from  far  o'er  hill  and  mead, 

And  here,  Cochituate's  envoy,  wait 
To  be  your  blithesome  Ganymede, 

And  brim  your  cups  with  nectar  true 

That  never  will  make  slaves  of  you. 


234 


LINES 

SUGGESTED    BY   THE   GRAVES   OF  TWO     ENGLISH    SOLDIERS   ON   CONCORD 
BATTLE-GROUND. 

The  same  good  blood  that  now  refills 
The  dotard  Orient's  shrunken  veins, 
The  same  whose  vigor  westward  thrills, 
Bursting  Nevada's  silver  chains, 
Poured  here  upon  the  April  grass, 
Freckled  with  red  the  herbage  new ; 
On  reeled  the  battle's  trampling  mass, 
Back  to  the  ash  the  bluebird  flew. 

Poured  here  in  vain  ;  —  that  sturdy  blood 
Was  meant  to  make  the  earth  more  green, 
But  in  a  higher,  gentler  mood 
Than  broke  this  April  noon  serene  ; 


LINES    ON    CONCORD    BATTLE-GROUND.  235 

Two  graves  are  here  ;  to  mark  the  place, 
At  head  and  foot,  an  unhewn  stone, 
O'er  which  the  herald  lichens  trace 
The  blazon  of  oblivion. 

These  men  were  brave  enough,  and  true 
To  the  hired  soldier's  bull-dog  creed  ; 
What  brought  them  here  they  never  knew, 
They  fought  as  suits  the  English  breed  ; 
They  came  three  thousand  miles,  and  died, 
To  keep  the  Past  upon  its  throne  ; 
Unheard,  beyond  the  ocean  tide, 
Their  English  mother  made  her  moan. 

The  turf  that  covers  them  no  thrill 
Sends  up  to  fire  the  heart  and  brain  ; 
No  stronger  purpose  nerves  the  will, 
No  hope  renews  its  youth  again  : 
From  farm  to  farm  the  Concord  glides, 
And  trails  my  fancy  with  its  flow  ; 
O'erhead  the  balanced  henhawk  slides, 
Twinned  in  the  river's  heaven  below. 


236  LINES    ON    CONCORD    BATTLE-GROUND. 

But  go,  whose  Bay  State  bosom  stirs, 
Proud  of  thy  birth  and  neighbour's  right, 
Where  sleep  the  heroic  villagers 
Borne  red  and  stiff  from  Concord  fight ; 
Thought  Reuben,  snatching  down  his  gun, 
Or  Seth,  as  ebbed  the  life  away, 
What  earthquake  rifts  would  shoot  and  run 
World-wide  from  that  short  April  fray  ? 

What  then  ?     With  heart  and  hand  they  wrought, 

According  to  their  village  light ; 

'T  was  for  the  Future  that  they  fought, 

Their  rustic  faith  in  what  was  right. 

Upon  earth's  tragic  stage  they  burst 

Unsummoned,  in  the  humble  sock  ; 

Theirs  the  fifth  act ;  the  curtain  first 

Rose  long  ago  on  Charles's  block. 

Their  graves  have  voices  ;  if  they  threw 
Dice  charged  with  fates  beyond  their  ken, 
Yet  to  their  instincts  they  were  true, 
And  had  the  genius  to  be  men. 


LINES    ON    CONCORD    BATTLE-GROUND.  237 

Fine  privilege  of  Freedom's  host, 

Of  even  foot-soldiers  for  the  Right !  — 

For  centuries  dead,  ye  are  not  lost, 

Your  graves  send  courage  forth,  and  might. 


238 


TO 


We,  too,  have  autumns,  when  our  leaves 
Drop  loosely  through  the  dampened  air, 

When  all  our  good  seems  bound  in  sheaves, 
And  we  stand  reaped  and  bare. 

Our  seasons  have  no  fixed  returns, 
Without  our  will  they  come  and  go  ; 

At  noon  our  sudden  summer  burns, 
Ere  sunset  all  is  snow. 


But  each  day  brings  less  summer  cheer, 
Crimps  more  our  ineffectual  spring, 


to  .  .239 

And  something  earlier  every  year 
Our  singing  birds  take  wing. 

As  less  the  olden  glow  abides, 

And  less  the  chillier  heart  aspires, 
With  drift-wood  beached  in  past  spring-tides 

We  light  our  sullen  fires. 

By  the  pinched  rushlight's  starving  beam 
We  cower  and  strain  our  wasted  sight, 

To  stitch  youth's  shroud  up,  seam  by  seam. 
In  the  long  arctic  night. 

It  was  not  so  —  we  once  were  young  — 

When  Spring,  to  womanly  Summer  turning, 

Her  dewdrops  on  each  grass-blade  strung, 
In  the  red  sunrise  burning. 

We  trusted  then,  aspired,  believed 

That  earth  could  be  remade  to-morrow  ;  — 

Ah,  why  be  ever  undeceived  ? 
Why  give  up  faith  for  sorrow  ? 


240  to  . 

O,  thou  whose  days  are  yet  all  spring, 
Trust,  blighted  once,  is  past  retrieving ; 

Experience  is  a  dumb,  dead  thing ; 
The  victory  's  in  believing. 


241 


FREEDOM. 


Ari:  we,  then,  wholly  fallen  ?     Can  it  be 
That  thou,  North-wind,  that  from  thy  mountains  bringest 
Their  spirit  to  our  plains,  and  thou,  blue  sea, 
Who  on  our  rocks  thy  wreaths  of  freedom  flingest, 
As  on  an  altar,  —  can  it  be  that  ye 
Have  wasted  inspiration  on  dead  ears, 
Dulled  with  the  too  familiar  clank  of  chains  ? 
The  people's  heart  is  like  a  harp  for  years 
Hung  where  some  petrifying  torrent  rains 
Its  slow-incrusting  spray  :  the  stiffened  chords 
Faint  and  more  faint  make  answer  to  the  tears 
That  drip  upon  them  :  idle  are  all  words  ; 
16 


242  FREEDOM. 

Only  a  silver  plectrum  wakes  the  tone 

Deep  buried  'neath  that  ever-thickening  stone. 

We  are  not  free  :  Freedom  doth  not  consist 

In  musing  with  our  faces  toward  the  Past, 

While  petty  cares,  and  crawling  interests,  twist 

Their  spider-threads  about  us,  which  at  last 

Grow  strong  as  iron  chains,  to  cramp  and  bind 

In  formal  narrowness  heart,  soul,  and  mind. 

Freedom  is  recreated  year  by  year, 

In  hearts  wide  open  on  the  God  ward  side, 

In  souls  calm-cadenced  as  the  whirling  sphere, 

In  minds  that  sway  the  future  like  a  tide. 

No  broadest  creeds  can  hold  her,  and  no  codes ; 

She  chooses  men  for  her  august  abodes, 

Building  them  fair  and  fronting  to  the  dawn  ; 

Yet,  when  we  seek  her,  we  but  find  a  few 

Light  footprints,  leading  morn-ward  through  the  dew 

Before  the  day  had  risen,  she  was  gone. 

And  we  must  follow  :  swiftly  runs  she  on, 
And,  if  our  steps  should  slacken  in  despair, 


FREEDOM.  243 

Half  turns  her  face,  half  smiles  through  golden  hair. 

For  ever  yielding,  never  wholly  won  : 

That  is  not  love  which  pauses  in  the  race 

Two  close-linked  names  on  fleeting  sand  to  trace  ; 

Freedom  gained  yesterday  is  no  more  ours : 

Men  gather  but  dry  seeds  of  last  year's  flowers  ; 

Still  there  's  a  charm  ungranted,  still  a  grace, 

Still  rosy  Hope,  the  free,  the  unattained, 

Makes  us  Possession's  languid  hand  let  fall ; 

'T  is  but  a  fragment  of  ourselves  is  gained,  — 

The  Future  brings  us  more,  but  never  all. 

And,  as  the  finder  of  some  unknown  realm, 
Mounting  a  summit  whence  he  thinks  to  see 
On  either  side  of  him  the  imprisoning  sea, 
Beholds^  above  the  clouds  that  overwhelm 
The  valley-land,  peak  after  snowy  peak 
Stretch  out  of  sight,  each  like  a  silver  helm 
Beneath  its  plume  of  smoke,  sublime  and  bleak. 
And  what  he  thought  an  island  finds  to  be 
A  continent  to  him  first  oped,  —  so  we 
Can  from  our  height  of  Freedom  look  along 


244 


FREEDOM. 


A  boundless  future,  ours  if  we  be  strong ; 
Or  if  we  shrink,  better  remount  our  ships, 
And,  fleeing  God's  express  design,  trace  back 
The  hero-freighted  Mayflower's  prophet-track 
To  Europe,  entering  her  blood-red  eclipse. 


245 


BIBLIOLATRES. 


Bowing  thyself  in  dust  before  a  Book, 

And  thinking  the  great  God  is  thine  alone, 

O  rash  iconoclast,  thou  wilt  not  brook 

What  gods  the  heathen  carves  in  wood  and  stone, 

As  if  the  Shepherd  who  from  outer  cold 

Leads  all  his  shivering  lambs  to  one  sure  fold 

Were  careful  for  the  fashion  of  his  crook. 

There  is  no  broken  reed  so  poor  and  base, 
No  rush,  the  bending  tilt  of  swamp-fly  blue, 
But  he  therewith  the  ravening  wolf  can  chase, 
And  guide  his  flock  to  springs  and  pastures  new  ; 


246 


BIBLIOLATRES. 


Through  ways  unlooked  for  and  through  many  lands, 
Far  from  the  rich  folds  built  with  human  hands, 
The  gracious  footprints  of  his  love  I  trace. 

And  what  art  thou,  own  brother  of  the  clod, 
That  from  his  hand  the  crook  wouldst  snatch  away, 
And  shake  instead  thy  dry  and  sapless  rod, 
To  scare  the  sheep  out  of  the  wholesome  day  ? 
Yea,  what  art  thou,  blind,  unconverted  Jew, 
That  with  thy  idol-volume's  covers  two 
Wouldst  make  a  jail  to  coop  the  living  God  ? 

Thou  hear'st  not  well  the  mountain  organ-tones 
By  prophet  ears  from  Hor  and  Sinai  caught, 
Thinking  the  cisterns  of  those  Hebrew  brains 
Drew  dry  the  springs  of  the  All-knower's  thought, 
Nor  shall  thy  lips  be  touched  with  living  fire, 
Who  blow'st  old  altar-coals  with  sole  desire 
To  weld  anew  the  spirit's  broken  chains. 

God  is  not  dumb,  that  he  should  speak  no  more  ; 
If  thou  hast  wanderings  in  the  wilderness 


BIBLIOLATRES.  247 

And  find'st  not  Sinai,  H  is  thy  soul  is  poor  ; 
There  towers  the  mountain  of  the  Voice  no  less, 
Which  whoso  seeks  shall  find,  but  he  who  bends, 
Intent  on  manna  still  and  mortal  ends, 
Sees  it  not,  neither  hears  its  thundered  lore. 

Slowly  the  Bible  of  the  race  is  writ, 

x\nd  not  on  paper  leaves  nor  leaves  of  stone  ; 

Each  age,  each  kindred,  adds  a  verse  to  it, 

Texts  of  despair  or  hope,  of  joy  or  moan. 

While  swings  the  sea,  while  mists  the  mountains  shroud, 

While  thunder's  surges  burst  on  cliffs  of  cloud, 

Still  at  the  prophets'  feet  the  nations  sit. 


248 


BEAVER    BROOK. 


Hushed  with  broad  sunlight  lies  the  hill, 
And,  minuting  the  long  day's  loss, 
The  cedar's  shadow,  slow  and  still, 
Creeps  o'er  its  dial  of  gray  moss. 

Warm  noon  brims  full  the  valley's  cup, 
The  aspen's  leaves  are  scarce  astir, 
Only  the  little  mill  sends  up 
Its  busy,  never-ceasing  burr. 

Climbing  the  loose-piled  wall  that  hems 
The  road  along  the  mill-pond's  brink, 
From  'neath  the  arching  barberry-stems, 
My  footstep  scares  the  shy  chewink. 


BEAVER    BROOK.  249 

Beneath  a  bony  buttonwood 
The  mill's  red  door  swings  open  wide  ; 
The  whitened  miller,  dust-imbued, 
Flits  past  the  square  of  dark,  inside. 

No  mountain  torrent's  strength  is  here  ; 
Sweet  Beaver,  child  of  forest  still, 
Heaps  its  small  pitcher  to  the  ear, 
And  gently  waits  the  miller's  will. 

Swift  slips  Undine  along  the  race 
Unheard,  and  then,  with  flashing  bound, 
Floods  the  dull  wheel  with  light  and  grace, 
And,  laughing,  hunts  the  loath  drudge  round. 

The  miller  dreams  not  at  what  cost 
The  quivering  mill-stones  hum  a  whirl, 
Nor  how,  for  every  turn,  are  tost 
Armfulls  of  diamond  and  of  pearls. 

But  Summer  cleared  my  happier  eyes 
With  drops  of  some  celestial  juice, 


250 


BEAVER    BROOK. 

To  see  how  beauty  underlies 
For  evermore  each  form  of  use. 

And  more  :  methought  I  saw  that  flood, 
Which  now  so  dull  and  darkling  steals, 
Thick,  here  and  there,  with  human  blood, 
To  turn  the  world's  laborious  wheels. 

No  more  than  doth  the  miller  there, 
Shut  in  our  several  cells,  do  we 
Know  with  what  waste  of  beauty  rare 
Moves  every  day's  machinery. 

Surely  the  wiser  time  shall  come 
When  this  fine  overplus  of  might, 
No  longer  sullen,  slow,  and  dumb, 
Shall  leap  to  music  and  to  light. 

In  that  new  childhood  of  the  world 

Life  of  itself  shall  dance  and  play, 

Fresh  blood  through  Time's  shrunk  veins  be  hurled, 

And  labor  meet  delight  half-way. 


251 


TO  JOHN  G.   PALFREY. 


There  are  who  triumph  in  a  losing  cause, 
Who  can  put  on  defeat,  as  't  were  a  wreath 
Unwithering  in  the  adverse  popular  breath, 

Safe  from  the  blasting  demagogue's  applause  ; 

'T  is  they  who  stand  for  Freedom  and  God's  laws. 
And  so  stands  Palfrey  now,  as  Marvell  stood, 
Loyal  to  Truth  dethroned,  nor  could  be  wooed 

To  trust  the  playful  tiger's  velvet  paws  : 
And  if  the  second  Charles  brought  in  decay 

Of  ancient  virtue,  if  it  well  might  wring 
Souls  that  had  broadened  'neath  a  nobler  day, 

To  see  a  losel,  marketable  king 


252  TO   JOHN    G.    PALFREY. 

Fearfully  watering  with  his  realm's  best  blood 

Cromwell's  quenched  bolts,  that  erst  had  cracked  and 
flamed, 

Scaring,  through  all  their  depths  of  courtier  mud, 

Europe's  crowned  bloodsuckers, — how  more  ashamed 

Ought  we  to  be,  who  see  Corruption's  flood 
Still  rise  o'er  last  year's  mark,  to  mine  away 
Our  brazen  idols'  feet  of  treacherous  clay  ! 

O  utter  degradation  !    Freedom  turned 
Slavery's  vile  bawd,  to  cozen  and  betray 
To  the  old  lecher's  clutch  a  maiden  prey, 

If  so  a  loathsome  pander's  fee  be  earned  ! 
And  we  are  silent,  —  we  who  daily  tread 

A  soil  sublime,  at  least,  with  heroes'  graves  !  — 
Beckon  no  more,  shades  of  the  noble  dead  ! 

Be  dumb,  ye  heaven-touched  lips  of  winds  and  waves ! 
Or  hope  to  rouse  some  Coptic  dullard,  hid 

Ages  ago,  wrapt  stiffly,  fold  on  fold, 

With  cerements  close,  to  wither  in  the  cold, 
For  ever  hushed,  and  sunless  pyramid  ! 


TO    JOHN    G.    PALFREY.  253 

Beauty  and  Truth,  and  all  that  these  contain, 
Drop  not  like  ripened  fruit  about  our  feet ; 

We  climb  to  them  through  years  of  sweat  and  pain  ; 

Without  long  struggle,  none  did  e'er  attain 
The  downward  look  from  Quiet's  blissful  seat : 

Though  present  loss  may  be  the  hero's  part, 

Yet  none  can  rob  him  of  the  victor  heart 
Whereby  the  broad-realmed  future  is  subdued, 

And  Wrong,  which  now  insults  from  triumph's  car, 

Sending  her  vulture  hope  to  raven  far, 
Is  made  unwilling  tributary  of  Good. 

0  Mother  State,  how  quenched  thy  Sinai  fires ! 

Is  there  none  left  of  thy  stanch  Mayflower  breed  ? 
No  spark  among  the  ashes  of  thy  sires, 

Of  Virtue's  altar-flame  the  kindling  seed  ? 
Are  these  thy  great  men,  these  that  cringe  and  creep, 

And  writhe  through  slimy  ways  to  place  and  power  ?  — 
How  long,  O  Lord,  before  thy  wrath  shall  reap 

Our  frail-stemmed  summer  prosperings  in  their  flower  ? 
O  for  one  hour  of  that  undaunted  stock, 
That  went  with  Vane  and  Sydney  to  the  block  ! 


254  TO    JOHN    G.    PALFREY. 

O  for  a  whiff  of  Naseby,  that  would  sweep, 
With  its  stern  Puritan  besom,  all  this  chaff 
From  the  Lord's  threshing-floor  !     Yet  more  than  half 

The  victory  is  attained,  when  one  or  two, 

Through  the  fool's  laughter  and  the  traitor's  scorn, 
Beside  thy  sepulchre  can  bide  the  morn, 

Crucified  Truth,  when  thou  shalt  rise  anew  ! 


THE     END. 


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